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DISRAELI 



DISRAELI 

A STUDY IN 
PERSONALITY AND IDEAS 



BY 

WALTER SICHEL 

AUTHOR OF "BOLINGBKOKE AND HIS TIMES' 



WITH THREE ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK •",, 

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 

LONDON : METHUEN & CO, 
1904 



63S5a 






ERRATUM 



Page 22, line 2 note, /or " called to the bar " reaci " entered at Lincoln's 
Inn " 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTION. ON THE IMAGINATIVE QUALITY .... I 

CHAPTER I 
DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 21 

CHAPTER II 

DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 53 

CHAPTER III 

LABOUR— " YOUNG ENGLAND •■'—" FREE TRADE " . . . .112 

CHAPTER IV 
CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 145 

CHAPTER V 

MONARCHY .... l8o 

CHAPTER VI 

COLONIES— EMPIRE— FOREIGN POLICY 199 

CHAPTER VII 

AMERICA— IRELAND 246 

CHAPTER VIII 

SOCIETY 268 

CHAPTER IX 

LITERATURE : WIT, HUMOUR, ROMANCE • . . . . 289 

CHAPTER X 

CAREER 316 

INDEX , 327 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



TO FACE PAGE 

PORTRAIT OF THE YOUNG DISRAELI. FROM THE MINIATURE BY 
KENNETH MACLEAY IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY 

Fi-ontispiece J- 

PORTRAIT OF DISRAELI THE YOUNGER. AFTER A WATER COLOUR 

BY A. E. CHALON 23 t- 

PORTRAIT OF DISRAELI IN 1852. AFTER A PAINTING BY SIR 

FRANCIS GRANT, P.R.A. . . 289 U 



"TIME IS REPRESENTED WITH A SCYTHE AS WELL AS WITH AN 
HOUR-GLASS, WITH THE ONE HE MOWS DOWN, WITH THE 
OTHER HE RECONSTRUCTS."— Disraeli, in The Press, 1853. 

"GREAT MINDS MUST TRUST TO GREAT TRUTHS AND GREAT 

TALENTS FOR THEIR RISE, AND NOTHING ELSE," 
" TRUE WISDOM LIES IN THE POLICY THAT WOULD EFFECT ITS 

AIMS BY THE INFLUENCE OF OPINION, AND YET BY THE MEANS 

OF EXISTING FORMS." 
"... THE PAST IS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF OUR POWER."— 

Speech on Mr. Cobden's death, April 2,, 1865. 



DISRAELI 

INTRODUCTION 

ON THE IMAGINATIVE QUALITY 

THE power of imagination is essential to supreme states- 
manship. Indeed, no really originative genius in any 
domain of the mind can succeed without it. In 
literature it reigns paramount. Of art it is the soul. 
Without it the historian is a mere registrar of sequence, and 
no interpreter of characters. In science it decides the end 
towards which the daring of a Verulam, a Newton, a Her- 
schel, a Darwin, can travel. On the battle-field, in both 
elements, it enabled Marlborough, Nelson, and Napoleon to 
revolutionise tactics. In the law its influence is perhaps less 
evident ; but even here a masterful insight into the spirit of 
precedent marks the creative judge. By lasting imagination, 
far more than by the colder weapon of shifting reason, the 
world is governed. " Even Mormon," wrote Disraeli, "counts 
more votaries than Bentham." For imagination is a vivid, 
intellectual, half-spiritual sympathy, which diverts the flood of 
human passion into fresh channels to fertilise the soil ; just 
as fancy again is the play of intellectual emotion. Whereas 
reason, the measure of which varies from age to age, can 
only at best dam or curb the deluge for a time. Reason 
educates and criticises, but Imagination inspires and creates. 
The magnetic force which is felt is really the spell of personal 
influence and the key of public opinion. It solves problems 
by visualising them, and kindles enthusiasm from its own 
fascinating fires. And more : Imagination is in the truest 



2 DISRAELI 

sense prophetic. Could one only grasp with a perfect view 
the myriad provinces of sufifering, enterprise, and aspiration 
with which the Leader is called upon to grapple, not only 
would the expedients to meet them suggest themselves as 
by a divine flash, but their inevitable relations and meanings 
would start into vision. For what the herd call the Present, 
is only the literal fact, the shell, of environment. Its spirit is 
the Future ; and the highest imagination in seeing it foresees. 
Imagination, once more, is the mainspring of spontaneity. 
Its vigour enables the will to beget circumstance, instead of 
being the creature of surroundings ; " for Imagination ever 
precedeth voluntary motion," says Bacon. It empowers the 
will of one to sway and mould the wills of many. And it is 
the very source of that capacity for idealism which alone dis- 
tinguishes man from the brute. Viewing in 1870 the general 
purport of his message, Disraeli wrote with truth that it 
"... ran counter to the views which had long been prevalent 
in England, and which may be popularly, though not 
altogether accurately, described as utilitarian ; " that it 
"recognised imagination in the government of nations as a 
quality not less important than reason ; " that it " trusted to a 
popular sentiment which rested on an heroic tradition, and 
was sustained by the high spirit of a free aristocracy ; " that 
its "economical principles were not unsound," but that it 
" looked upon the health and knowledge of the multitude as 
not the least precious part of the wealth of nations ; " that " in 
asserting the doctrine of race," it "was entirely opposed to 
the equality of man, and similar abstract dogmas, which have 
destroyed ancient society without creating a satisfactory sub- 
stitute ; " that " resting on popular sympathies and popular 
privileges," it " held that no society could be durable unless it 
was built upon the principles of loyalty and religious reverence." 
How comes it, then, that, in the art of governing a free 
people, this imaginative fellowship with unseen ideas, this 
power which men call Genius, " to make the passing shadow 
serve thy will," is so constantly suspected and mistrusted ; 
that ?mcommon sense, until it triumphs, is a stone of stum- 
bling to the common sense of the average man ? That 
Cromwell was called a self-seeking maniac for his vision of 



ON THE IMAGINATIVE QUALITY 3 

Theocracy ; William of Orange, a cold-blooded monster for 
his quest after union and empire ; Bolingbroke, a charlatan 
for his fight against class-preponderance, and on behalf of 
united nationality ; Chatham, an actor for his dramatic dis- 
dain of shams ; Canning, by turns a charlatan and buffoon, 
for preferring the traditions of a popular crown to the inno- 
vations of a crowned democracy, and at the same time 
seeking to break the charmed circle of a patrician syndicate ; 
that Burke was hounded out by jealous oligarchs for refusing 
to confound the "nation" with the "people," and cosmo- 
politan opinions with national principles ? The main answer 
is simple. What is above the moment is feared by it, and 
malice is the armour of fear : " It is the abject property of 
most that being parcel of the common mass, and destitute of 
means to raise themselves, they sink and settle lower than 
they need. They know not what it is to feel within a com- 
prehensive faculty that grasps great purposes with ease, that 
turns and wields almost without an effort plans too vast for 
their conception, which they cannot move ; " and there are 
always the jealous who — 

"... If they find 
Some stain or blemish in a name of note, 
Not grieving that their greatest are so small, 
Inflate themselves with some insane delight, 
And judge all Nature from her feet of clay." 

There are the puzzled whom novelty bewilders, and there 
are the cautious who suspect it. And there is the wholesome 
instinct of the plain majority to pin itself to immediate 
"measures" without recognising that a " principle" may change 
expedients for bringing its idea into effect. Again, there 
are many — especially in England — who, in their genuine 
scorn of pinchbeck, mistake the great for the grandiose, and 
certain that nothing which glitters can be gold, invest 
imaginative brilliance with the tinsel spangles of Harlequin. 
There are, too, the second-rate and the second-hand, 
whose life is one long quotation, and who doubt every 
coin unissued from the nearest mint ; and there is, moreover, 
a sort of stolid crassness readily dignified into sterling 
solidity. All this is natural. Institutions and traditions 



4 DISRAELI 

themselves have been aliens until naturalised in and by the 
community. Imagination gave them birth, national needs 
accept them ; and the contemporary sneer is often succeeded 
by the posthumous statue. 

Perhaps the most curious feature of the prosaic and im- 
perceptive man is his ready confusion of the dramatic with 
the theatrical, of attitude with posture, of pointed effects 
for a big purpose with affectations for a small. Flirtation 
might just as well be confounded with love, or foppery with 
breeding. And yet these same unimaginative censors have 
often contradicted their protests by their actions, and squan- 
dered great opportunities by futile strokes of the theatre. 

So early as 1837, Shell, who from the first admired the 
young Disraeli (then Bulwer's intimate and the meteor of 
three seasons), whom Disraeli praised in one of his earliest 
election speeches, and who was surely no mean judge of intel- 
lectual eloquence, warned him after his debut that "the 
House will not allow a man to be a wit and an orator, unless 
they have the credit of finding it out. . . . You have shown 
the House that you have a fine organ, that you have an 
unlimited command of language, that you have courage, 
temper, and readiness. Now get rid of your genius for a 
session ; speak often, for you must not show yourself cowed, 
but speak shortly. Be very quiet, try to be dull, only argue 
and reason imperfectly, for if you reason with precision, they 
will think you are trying to be witty. Astonish them by 
speaking on subjects of detail. Quote figures, dates, calcu- 
lations, and in a short time the House will sigh for the wit 
and eloquence which they all know are in you ; they will 
encourage you to pour them forth, and then you will have 
the ear of the House, and be a favourite." Seventeen years 
afterwards, when the dashing littirateuv had become Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, 
Mr. Walpole thus defended him against his enemies on the 
Budget. "... Whence is it that these extraordinary attacks 
are made against my right honourable friend ? What is the 
reason, what is the cause, that he is to be assailed at every 
point, when he has made two financial statements in one 
year, which have both met with the approbation of this 



ON THE IMAGINATIVE QUALITY 5 

House, and I believe also with the approbation of the 
country ? Is it because he has laboured hard and long, 
contending with genius against rank and power and the ablest 
statesmen, until he has attained the highest eminence which 
an honourable ambition may ever aspire to — the leadership 
and guidance of the Commons of England ? Is it because he 
has verified in himself the dignified description of a great 
philosophical poet of antiquity, portraying equally his past 
career and his present position — 

' Certare ingenio ; contendere nobilitate ; 
Noctes atque dies niti pr^stante labore 
Ad summas emergere opes, rerumque potiri ' ? " 

Yes ! This is the sort of barrier piled in the path of the 
brilliant by the " practical " man — " the man who practises the 
blunders of his predecessors," the " prophet of the past." Still 
greater, because deeper laid, are the obstacles which confront 
him when he has mastered the drudgery of office and the 
strategy of debate ; when, from the vantage-ground of political 
pre-eminence and public approval, he dares to look over the 
heads of his compeers and prepare strong foundations for 
the future of his country. Then that becomes true which 
Bolingbroke has so splendidly expressed : " The ocean which 
environs us is an emblem of our government, and the pilot 
and the minister are in similar circumstances. It seldom 
happens that either of them can steer a direct course, and 
they both arrive at their port by means which frequently 
seem to carry them from it. But as the work advances, the 
conduct of him who leads it on with real abilities clears up, 
the appearing inconsistencies are reconciled, and when it is 
once consummated, the whole shows itself so uniform, so plain, 
and so natural, that every dabbler in politics will be apt to 
think that he could have done the same." 

It is this that Disraeli effected by reverting to fundamental 
elements and substituting the generous, inclusive, and 
" national " Toryism of Bolingbroke, Wyndham, and Pitt, for 
the perverted Toryism of Eldon ; the " party without prin- 
ciples," the "Tory men and Whig measures," the "organised 
hypocrisy " that followed on the " Tamworth Manifesto ; " the 
Conservatism that " preserved " institutions as men " preserve " 



6 DISRAELI 

game, only to kill them ; and the outworn Whiggism that 
excluded all but a few governing families from power ; and, 
after its great achievement of religious liberty, exploited the 
extension of civil privileges as the mere muniment of its 
own title. He ended the confederacies and revived the creed.'^ 
He repudiated the system under which "the Crown had 
become a cipher, the Church a sect, the nobility drones, and 
the people drudges." "... But we forget," he urges in Sybil, 
" Sir Robert Peel is not the leader of the Tory party — the 
party that resisted the ruinous mystification that metamor- 
phosed direct taxation by the Crown into indirect taxation 
by the Commons ; that denounced the system which mort- 
gaged industry to protect property ; ^ the party that ruled 
Ireland by a scheme which reconciled both Churches, and by 
a series of parliaments which counted among them lords and 
commons of both religions ; that has maintained at all times 
the territorial constitution of England as the only basis and 
security for local government, and which nevertheless once laid 
on the table of the House of Commons a commercial tariff 
negotiated at Utrecht, which is the most rational that was ever 
devised by statesmen ; a party that has prevented the Church 
from being the salaried agent of the State, and has supported 
the parochial polity of the country which secures to every 
labourer a home. In a parliamentary sense that great party 
has ceased to exist ; but I will believe that it still lives in 
the thought and sentiment ... of the English nation. It 
has its origin in great principles and noble instincts ; it 
sympathises with the lowly, it looks up to the Most High ; 
it can count its heroes and its martyrs. . . , Even now, . . . 
in an age of political materialism, of confused purposes and 
perplexed intelligence, that aspires only to wealth because it 
has faith in no other accomplishment ; ^ as men rifle cargoes 

^ " . . . These are concessionary, not Conservative principles. This 
party treats institutions as we do our pheasants, they preserve only to 
destroy them." 

"^ Swift, adverting to National Debt. 

^ Cardinal Newman afterwards inveighed against the same union of 
faithlessness and Mammon in one of his finest sermons. Disraeli con- 
stantly dwelt on the dangers that liberty might suffer, if a democracy un- 
reconciled to monarchy and its institutions became a class instead of an 



ON THE IMAGINATIVE QUALITY 7 

on the verge of shipwreck, Toryism will yet rise from the 
tomb . . . to bring back strength to the Crown, liberty to the 
subject, and to announce that power has only one duty — to secure 
the social welfare of the people!' 

And, again, this from the close of Coningsby : "... he 
looked upon a government without distinct principles of 
policy as only a stop-gap to a widespread and demoralising 
anarchy ; . . .he for one could not comprehend how a free 
government could endure without national opinions to uphold 
it. . . . As for Conservative government, the natural question 
was, ' What do you mean to conserve } . . . Things or only 
names, realities or merely appearances } Do you mean to 
continue the system commenced in 1834, and with a hypo- 
critical reverence for the principles and a superstitious 
adherence to the forms of the old exclusive constitution, 
carry on your policy by latitudinarian practice .-*' " 

His lifelong purpose as a statesman was to refresh institu- 
tions with reality, and to show by practice, as well as by 
precept, that, in all classes, an aristocracy without inherent 
superiority is doomed. De Tocqueville, in his famous treatise 
on " The Old Regime and the Revolution," does the same. 

Eighteenth-century Toryism, a smitten cause espousing 
popular privileges, taught that unless the Crown ruled for the 
people as well as reigned over them, unless the nobles led 
them independently to high issues, unless the people them- 
selves recognised that they were the privileged order in a 
nation, and that their representatives should form "a senate 
supported by the sympathy of millions," the traditional prin- 
ciples of England had dwindled into a sham. 

" No one," says Disraeli in Coningsby, again adverting to 
the critical issues of 1834, "had arisen either in Parliament, 
the Universities, or the Press, to lead the public mind to the 
investigation of principles ; and not to mistake in their 
reformations the corruption of practice for fundamental ideas. 
It was this perplexed, ill-informed, jaded, shallow generation, 

element, and was brought into collision with the " three per cents." The 
despotisms of bare democracy and of aggravated plutocracy were equally 
distasteful to him, and he feared their union. Cf. many striking passages 
in The Press, 1853-59. 



8 DISRAELI 

repeating cries which they did not comprehend, and wearied 
with the endless ebullitions of their own barren conceit, that 
Sir Robert Peel was summoned to govern. It was from such 
materials, ample in quantity, but in all spiritual qualities most 
deficient ; with great numbers, largely acred, consoled up to 
their chins, but without knowledge, genius, thought, truth, or 
faith, that Sir Robert Peel was to form ' a great Conservative 
party on a comprehensive basis. . . .'" Even Sir Robert's 
single-mindedness and supremacy over Parliament failed to 
secure strength of Government. By universal consent, includ- 
ing his own avowal, he wrecked a great party in a country 
where great parties form the main pledge for the due repre- 
sentation of political opinion, and under a system where they 
remain the chief preventive against public corruption. 

The first two Georges had reigned over the towns, but not 
over the country. After the Reform Bill it seemed as though 
the great cities themselves would swamp the land. How was 
Sir Robert to save the situation in 1834? Speaking with 
respect for Sir Robert, but with contempt for his " Tamworth 
Manifesto," Disraeli, in his discussion of that famous document, 
repeats his message once more : " . . . There was indeed 
considerable shouting about what they called Conservative 
principles ; but the awkward question naturally arose, ' What 
will you conserve ? ' The prerogatives of a Crown, provided 
they are not exercised ; the independence of the House of 
Lords, provided it is not asserted ; the ecclesiastical estate, 
provided it is regulated by a commission of laymen. Every- 
thing, in short, that is established, as long as it is a phrase 
and not a fact." ^ 

It is thus that the man of ideas is, in the long run, 
eminently practical ; and it is thus, too, that in the realm of 
art ideas are the surest realities. But here also the immediate 
appeal constantly falls to the lot of what is called " realism," 
and few feel what they cannot touch until the popular voice 
tells them that it is "real." "Madame," says Heine in his 
" Buch Legrand," " have you the ghost of an idea what an 
idea is ? * I have put my best ideas into this coat,' says 

^ With this passage should be compared the striking remarks on 
p. 222 of The Political Biography of Lord George Bentinck. 



ON THE IMAGINATIVE QUALITY 9 

my tailor. My washerwoman says the parson has filled her 
daughter's head with ideas, and unfitted her for anything 
sensible ; and coachman Pattensen mumbles on every occa- 
sion, 'That is an idea.' But yesterday, when I inquired 
what he meant, he snarled out, * An idea is just an idea ; it 
is any silly stuff that comes into one's head.' " 

No memorial of Disraeli's magical career can be adequate 
without access to the papers confided to the late Lord Row- 
ton, as well as to much private and unpublished correspond- 
ence. It is no slur on the " Lives " that have already appeared 
to say that they lack the materials for a complete picture 
The best of these beyond question is Mr. Froude's ; but not 
only is it tinged with considerable prejudice, but it is very 
faulty in its facts ; and, moreover, in common with Mr. Bryce's 
cursory essay and Herr Brandes's minuter study, it has 
perhaps fallen into the error of misreading Disraeli's mature 
character and career from isolated and indiscriminate use of 
such sidelights as they are pleased to discover in his earliest 
novels. To trace Disraeli's development, it is necessary to 
follow the long and continuous thread of his words and actions, 
to consider the changes experienced during the fifty years of 
his political outlook in England and in Europe, and to ascer- 
tain how many of these tendencies were foreseen, produced, 
or modified by him. The criticisms current are either those 
of men (often partisans) who lack this length of view, and 
interpret the latter manifestations of Disraeli's genius, with 
which alone they are even outwardly acquainted, in the light 
of preconceived notions, or the few circulated comparatively 
early in his career, before its eventual drift was revealed, and 
while the full blaze of hostile bitterness was raging. There 
exists, it is true, a most able, a most appreciative, a most 
detailed account of his political career, compiled by Mr. 
Ewald shortly after Lord Beaconsfield's death, but this is 
mainly a long parliamentary chronicle. Mr. Kebbel's en- 
lightening edition of selected speeches is illustrative though 
limited. To both of these, among many other sources, direct 
and indirect, I here gratefully acknowledge my obligation. 

A real biography, therefore, is at present impossible. 
Disraeli's acknowledged debt to his darling sister and devoted 



lo DISRAELI 

wife ("Women," he has said, "are the priestesses of pre- 
destination ") ; his correspondence and commerce with many 
eminent men, including both Louis PhiHppe and Napoleon 
III. ; his letters to our late Queen ; his notes of policy ; the 
rough drafts for compositions, both literary and parliamentary ; 
his State papers and official memoranda ; his relations to 
many men of letters and leading ; such known, though un- 
published, correspondence as even that with Mrs. Williams ; 
the glimpses of him as a youth through Mrs. Austin, Bulwer, 
Lord Strangford, the Sheridans, with many others ; in his 
age, through a privileged circle of distinguished and devoted 
associates — all these, and many more, must be pressed into 
service if even the rudiments are to be portrayed. And none 
of these are yet available. 

I have therefore thought that, pending such an enterprise, 
some account, however imperfect, of the ideas that governed 
him throughout — a slight biography, as it were, of his mind — 
might prove acceptable. It will endeavour to depict the 
spirit of his attitude to the world in which he moved and for 
which he worked. It will aim at representing the temperature 
of his opinions immanent alike in his writings and speeches. 
His utterance was never bounded by the mere occasion, and 
light and guidance may be found in it for the problems of 
to-day. In most that he wrote or said, a certain swell of soul, 
a sweep and stretch of mind are strikingly manifest. 

" How very seldom," he has written, " do you encounter in 
the world a man of great abilities, acquirements, experience, 
who will unmask his mind, unbutton his brains, and pour forth 
in careless and picturesque phrase all the results of his studies 
and observations, his knowledge of men, books, and nature ! " 
Such a contribution is anyhow feasible, and is fraught with 
more than even the glamour linked with the person by whom 
these ideas were clothed in words and deeds. For principles 
are applied ideas ; habits are applied principles. Disraeli's 
ideas have, to some extent, become ruling principles, 
several of them are at this moment national habits ; while 
some of them, unachieved during his Hfetime, seem in process 
of accomplishment. Disraeli was a poet— one of those "un- 
acknowledged legislators of the world" described by "Herbert" 



ON THE IMAGINATIVE QUALITY ii 

in Venetia ; but his imaginative fancy was allied to a very 
strong character. It is a rare combination. To Bolingbroke's 
youthful genius he united that force of will and purpose for 
which Bolingbroke had long to wait, and which, perhaps, he 
never fully attained. This analogy was pressed on Disraeli 
on the threshold of his career by a distinguished friend. 

Above all things Disraeli was a personality. Personality 
is independent of training, except in the rare cases where 
education accords with predisposition. It is the will. And 
in authorship, when expression chimes with intention, it is the 
style. Personality is the clue to history, for events proceed 
from character, more than character from events. Comment- 
ing on the adoption of the " Charter " by non-chartists groan- 
ing under the injustice of industrial slavery, Disraeli observes 
most truly : "... But all this had been brought about, as 
most of the great events of history, by the unexpected and 
unobserved influence of individual character." Personality is 
the salt of politics ; it is the spirit of our party system ; and 
woe betide every era in England when figure-heads replace 
head-figures. It is an atmosphere enchanting the land- 
scape. "... It is the personal that interests mankind, that 
fires their imagination and wins their hearts. A cause is a 
great abstraction, and fit only for students : embodied in a 
party, it stirs men to action ; but place at the head of that 
party a leader who can inspire enthusiasm, he commands the 
world. ..." Association, groups, co-operative principles, 
these are the mechanisms invented by the brain, and guided 
by the hand of individuality, the fuel that individuality 
gathers and enkindles. Without it they remain dead 
lumber, and can never of themselves prove originative forces. 
What men crave is, once more in Disraeli's parlance, "... A 
primordial and creative mind ; one that will say to his fellows, 
' Behold, God has given me thought, I have discovered truth, 
and you s/iall believe.' " Personality is the contradiction of 
the mechanical and of the dead level ; it is the soul of 
influence. How depressing is the reverse side of the medal ! — 
" Duncan Macmorrogh" (the utilitarian in T/ie Young Duke) 
"cut up the Creation and got a name. His attack upon 
mountains was most violent, and proved, by its personality 



12 DISRAELI 

that he had come from the lowlands. He demonstrated the 
inability of all elevation, and declared that the Andes were 
the aristocracy of the globe. Rivers he rather patronised, 
but flowers he quite pulled to pieces, and proved them to be 
the most useless of existences. . . . He informed us that we 
were quite wrong in supposing ourselves to be the miracle of 
the Creation. On the contrary, he avowed that already there 
were various pieces of machinery of far more importance than 
man ; and he had no doubt in time that a superior race would 
arise, got by a steam-engine on a spinning-jenny. ..." 

To impress his ideas through his will on his generation, 
was Disraeli's ruling purpose from the first ; but to attain the 
position which would entitle him to do so he never regarded 
as more than a ladder towards his main ambition. Ambi- 
tion ^ spurred him from the first. But, as the present Duke of 
Devonshire generously owned in the heat of party contest, 
Disraeli was never prompted by mean or unworthy motives ; 
and — added the speaker — it would be the merest cant to 
pretend that honourable and honest ambition is not a main 
incitement to public life. At the outset he was convinced 
of a mission, and the visions over which he had long brooded 
in silent solitude became realised in the world of action. 
Both reverie and energy alternated even in his boyish being. 
" I fully believed myself the object of an omnipotent Destiny 
over which I had no control " — and yet " Destiny bears us 
to our lot, and Destiny is perhaps our own will." "... There 
arose in my mind a desire to create things beautiful as that 
golden star ; " and yet "... Nor could I conceive that 
anything could tempt me from my solitude . . . but the 
strong conviction that the fortunes of my race depended 
on my effort, or that I could materially forward that great 
amelioration, ... in the practicability of which I devoutly 
believe." As a boy he dreamed of "shaking thrones and 
founding empires ; " and yet, he felt that he must not 

» " It was that noble ambition, the highest and the best, that must be 
born in the heart and organised in the brain, which will not let a man 
be content unless his intellectual power is recognised by his race, and 
desires that it should contribute to their welfare." Thus he speaks of 
Coningsby, the castle of whose fathers is not to be one " of Indolence." 



ON THE IMAGINATIVE QUALITY 13 

" pass " his " days like a ghost gliding in a vision." These 
are among the echoes and glimpses afforded by his earliest 
fiction of his earliest self, and to this topic I shall recur in my 
last chapter. I mention them here for a material reason. In 
treating his thoughts we must distinguish between those 
notions which merely concern success or career, and those 
ideas which assured victory was to achieve. Nor should we 
omit the very vital distinction between personality and egot- 
ism, for confusion in this regard constantly obscures our 
estimates. Individuality with the forces that make for it is 
not " individualism ; " yet the two are often confused. 

The essential egotist is a sort of buccaneer. He roams 
the seas to rifle cargoes, and his conquests are the spoils of 
a freebooter. He seeks to exploit society for his own benefit 
— to burn down his neighbour's roof-tree that he may boil 
his egg. He gives nothing that he can keep, and takes all 
he can grasp by whatever methods may advantage him. He 
leaves the world poorer when he goes, and as he leaves it, 
he wishes it. In Cowper's words— 

" Cruel is all he does. 'Tis quenchless thirst 
Of ruinous ebriety that prompts 
His every action, and imbrutes the man." 

The man, on the other hand, of overwhelming personality, 
aspires honourably to power, the very condition of which in 
his eyes is to guide and elevate the country which entrusts 
him with it. The responsibility of privilege, great position on 
the tenure of great duties, ambition not as a right but as the 
sole means of enforcing his ideals — these are his character- 
istics. He never covets place without power, and never power 
without influence ; whereas some kind of covetousness is 
essential to the egotist. " He who has great honours," 
Disraeli has urged, " must have great burdens." And again : 
"... My conception," he said, in a signal speech during 1846, 
" of a great statesman is of one who represents a great idea ; 
an idea which he may and can impress on the mind and 
conscience of a nation. . . . That is a grand, that is indeed 
an heroic position. But I care not what may be the position 
of a man who never originates an idea — a watcher of the 
atmosphere, a man who . . . takes his observations, and when 



14 DISRAELI 

he finds the wind in a certain quarter trims to suit it. Such a 
person may be a powerful Minister, but he is no more a great 
statesman than the man who gets up behind a carriage is a 
great whip. Both are disciples of progress ; both perhaps 
may get a good place. But how far the original momentum 
is indebted to their powers, and how far their guiding 
prudence regulates the lash or the rein, it is not necessary 
for me to notice." 

Disraeli never stooped to trim ; he always aspired to 
steer. When he started as a brilliant author, electric with 
ideas derided but since accepted — as an imaginative origi- 
nator, "full of deep passions and deep thoughts" — it would 
have been easy for him to have followed the triumphal car 
of the Whigs who invited him.^ It would have been easy for 
him to have suited himself to Sir Robert Peel's vicissitudes of 
private, and desertion of public opinion, embodied in a great 
party which had raised him to power. In obeying again the 
central ideas which quickened him from the first, Disraeli broke 
up the " Young England " party, which looked up to and 
cheered him, whose main objects he inspired, and eventually 
realised. And in 1867, as we shall see, so far from " dishing " 
the Liberals with their own measure of Reform, he carried, in 
the teeth of his own supporters, one on lines peculiar to his 
own perpetual view of the subject, and at length achieved 
what he had Urged in the 'thirties, the 'forties, and the 'fifties. 

In the stubborn pursuit of his aims Disraeli even courted 
unpopularity. On every occasion when the object of the Jew 
bill was involved with other measures which he considered 
prejudical to its due interests, he risked misconstruction by 
withholding his vote. During the long spell of 1859-66, 
when a dispirited, and sometimes disloyal following often left 
him alone in his seat, he continued the pronouncements alike 
and the reticence which they disrelished. During the six 
years previous he dared to offend them equally by hammer- 
ing the Government's foreign policy, and insisting on his own 
convictions. Nobody, again, more regretted the precipitancy 
of Lord Derby in 1852, although his rash assumption of office 

^ Through Lord Durham, Lord J. Russell, and Lord Melbourne, whom 
he met early at Mrs. Norton's. 



ON THE IMAGINATIVE QUALITY 15 

afforded Disfaeli his first hard-won opportunity of leadership. 
During three separate sets of discreditable intrigues to dethrone 
him, he kept place, counsel, and temper without wheedling con- 
cessions or recriminating revenges, though none could strike 
home harder when he chose. 

"... Ah, why should such enthusiasm ever die ? Life is 
too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he 
feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness 
and with fervour." 

The fact that both the mere egotist, and the man of 
intense personality, must, from the need of their respectively 
low and lofty concentrations, be self-centred, and infuse their 
temperaments into the objects of their energy, favours, it is 
true, the mistake to which I have referred. But the one is 
pettily fixed on self, the other intent on ideals. He leads a 
Hfe of ideas which form his atmosphere, and which emanate 
from it. He mounts the chariot to drive it to a distant goal, 
while the other borrows or pilfers it for his own immediate 
convenience. Egoism— if I may coin a distinction — is one 
thing, egotism another. Goethe was an egoist — he is full of 
a radiating self; but such egoism is, if we reflect, the very 
opposite of the egotist, who is full of a shrivelled selfishness. 
Such were the later phases of Napoleon, who changed from a 
generous imparter into an absorbing monopolist. That was 
egotism. All genius, however, has been egoist, and ever will 
be ; for genius is at once the ear, sensitive to the subtlest 
appeals of existence, and the voice which constrains others 
to enter the realm of its ideas. Its sensitiveness is part of 
its strength, and in this respect it shares the self-conscious- 
ness of the artist. It is in the real sense auto-suggestive ; it 
implants ideas which its will generates into events. It is in 
some degree that — 

"... which many people take for want of heart. 

They err. — 'Tis merely what is called mobility, 
A thing of temperament, and not of art, 

Though seeming so from its supposed facility ; 
And false though true ; for surely they're sincerest 
Who are strongly acted on by what is nearest." 

And its faults, as I shall show in my closing chapter, are 
associated with its very qualities. 



i6 DISRAELI 

Genius is both light and heat ; it combines enthusiasm 
with insight. Such a genius was Disraeli. He was eminently 
a man of ideas, and not merely of abnormal perceptions. 
This distinction again is material, and too often ignored. 

The eminently perceptive man is at root a critic, while 
the man of ideas is by prerogative a creator ; and yet the 
quick perceiver is often mistaken for a creative genius, and 
keenness confused with originality. In politics, for instance, 
this was the case with such different beings as Peel and 
Gambetta ; in literature, with Addison and Arnold ; in art, 
with Kneller and Lawrence. Disraeli's ideas were at once 
his creations and companions, and he moved in their inner 
circle with a sort of extravagant intensity. They were no 
shadows. He was convinced of their substance almost to 
fatalism, and his immense will-power forced and projected them 
into movement. In his extreme youth, before his character 
had matured, these ideas flickered as fantasies. The restless- 
ness of a volition felt, but not yet freed or directed, caused 
some masquerade of guise, and a perpetual strain on the 
intuition that sought to forestall experience. Realisation alone, 
with power and experience, brought repose. But at all periods 
an idea that had once seized him tinged his whole being. 
Its reality haunted him till he had given it place and shape.^ 
An inward and ideal energy possessed him. Ideas were for 
him far more tangible, even far more sociable, than the out- 
ward and fleeting phantasms around him, as is evidenced in 
his fiction by his constant habit of transferring environment 
and transplanting personalities to accentuate their ideal 
essence. Thus, in Venetian the soul of Lady Byron animates 
the form of Shelley's wife, while the very date is put back 
some thirty years, that Shelley himself might be enabled to 
have braved in action what he mused in poetry. So, again, 
in Contarini, the hero's development blends something of his 
own with something of his father's character; while Baron 
Fleming is his grandfather reincarnated as a noble.^ About 

1 I may mention that when he wrote Alarcos in six weeks, an 
intimate (I think Lord Strangford) asked him why he had turned his 
energies to tragedy. " The idea haunted me," was the reply, " and I 
could not rest until I had given it expression." 

* There is a touch also of his grandfather in the " Mr. Putney Giles ' ' 



ON THE IMAGINATIVE QUALITY 17 

the ironies of these, the arabesques of his playful fancy flick- 
ered. For him they were mostly the pretexts of things, but 
ideas were the causes, and he loved to contrast " the pretext 
with the cause ; " but even here romance blent with irony, 
and invested the seemingly trivial with wonder. Some, too, 
of his ideas hovered, as it were, over the present scene, in a 
flight bound other-whither and beyond. In a word, Disraeli 
was an artist, conscious and confident of an over-mastering 
call. As he has written in a striking passage from the work 
of his youth, Contarini Fleming : " I never labour to delude 
myself ; and never gloss over my own faults. I exaggerate 
them ; for I can afford to face truth, because I feel capable 
of improvement. ... I am never satisfied. . . . The very 
exercise of power teaches me that it may be wielded for a 
greater purpose. . . . No one could be influenced by a 
greater desire of knowledge, a greater passion for the beauti- 
ful, or a deeper regard for his fellow-creatures. ... I want 
no false fame. It would be no delight to me to be con- 
sidered a prophet, were I conscious of being an impostor. 
I ever wish to be undeceived ; but if I possess the organisa- 
tion of a poet, no one can prevent me from exercising my 
faculty, any more than he can rob the courser of his fleet- 
ness, or the nightingale of her song." 

The " ill-regulated will," " the undercurrent of feelings he 
was then unable to express," portrayed in Vivian Gr6y, de- 
veloped into the higher and more elevating purposes of which 
his transforming imagination was all along capable. That 
very book contained the germs of what its composition re- 
vealed to his own mind — that out of a young adventurer with 
purpose and genius, the school of life forms a strong character 
and a great man. In Contarini Fleming the irresistible power 
of predisposition, the hoUowness of a nurture which ignores 
it and substitutes "words" for "ideas," the interactions of 
imagination and experience, the fatuity of contradicting or 
overstraining Nature, are pursued ; nor, as regards this novel, 
should it be forgotten that in some portions of its analysis 

oiLothair, who : " never made difficulties, but always overcame them." In 
both " Miriam " {Alroy) " Venetia " and " Myra " iEndymion) there are 
direct transferences from his sister's temperament ; and " St. Barbe " is far 
more Hay ward than Thackeray. 
C 



1 8 DISRAELI 

there are traces in allusive undertone to the fatalities of the 
great and stricken Dean of St. Patrick's.^ 

In Disraeli's case, as so often before him, "the dreaming 
part of mankind" has "prevailed over the waking." His 
flouted dreams came true. They still hold sway. To give 
effectual substance to these higher and abiding dreams, those 
other dreams of ascendency, through which alone his will 
could realise his ideas, were also verified. " It is the will " — 
he speaks by the lips of the young " Alroy " — " that is father 
to the deed, and he who broods over some long idea, however 
wild, will find his dream was but the prophecy of coming fate." 
" All is ordained," he had said as a stripling, " yet man is master 
of his own actions." ^ Disraeli's career was itself a romance — 
a romance of the will that defies circumstance, and moulds 
the soil where ideas are to flourish. An inward, personal 
energy is the parent of faith, and faith in oneself is the sole 
security for the issue of faith among others. He lived to 
triumph, but not in order to triumph ; and he remains a 
standing protest against those who believe in cliques and dis- 
believe in personal influence. The former are only compact 
in appearance ; they are unsympathetic associations, welded 
together by interest alone. Joint-stock enterprise is not 
fellowship, and the test of direction is liability. Nor is it 
without significance that "Fortune," even in the ancient 
world a real though blind goddess, has come, in the modern, 
to mean little more than cash ; so that capital leans away 
from labour, plutocracy is cemented, solidarity declines, and 
worth too often is resolved by the question, "Worth how 
much?" 

It is this idea of personality that lies at the very root of 
united nationality ; for a nation is an idealised individual, no 
aggregate of atoms. Still less is it the experimenting room 
of doctrinaires or the dumping-ground of the Tapers and 
Tadpoles, the Paul Prys of politics, who "whisper nothings 
that sound like somethings ; " or of those " Marneys," " Fitz- 
Aquitaines," and " Mowbrays " who deem that the end of an 
administration is " two garters to begin with ; " or again of 

^ Cf. the moralisations in its strange account of the hero's malady. 
^ The Infernal Marriage. 



ON THE IMAGINATIVE QUALITY 19 

" the good old gentlemanlike times, when Members of Parlia- 
ment had nobody to please, and Ministers of State nothing 
to do ; " of those who, like " Rigby," mistake peddling with 
constituencies for representing the country ; or of those petty 
placemen to whom, as he has said, party means the machinery 
for receiving ";^i20o" a year, career the pursuit of it, and 
success its attainment. 

" . . . I prefer " (the passage is from Sybil) " association 
to gregariousness. ... It is a community of purpose that 
constitutes society . . . without that men may be drawn into 
contiguity, but they will continue virtually isolated. . . ." 
What does this imply but the sympathetic power of person- 
ality } The more individual societies become, the greater 
their efficacy. The less individual they are the more they 
display the tameness and unfruitfulness that enfeeble a 
copy. 

" But what is an individual," exclaimed " Coningsby," 
" against a vast public opinion ? " 

" Divine," said the stranger. " God made man in His own 
image ; but the Public is made by newspapers. Members of 
Parliament, excise officers. Poor Law guardians. Would 
Philip have succeeded, if Epaminondas had not been slain ? 
And if Philip had not succeeded ? Would Prussia have 
existed, had Frederick not been born } And if Frederick 
had not been born .'' What would have been the fate of the 
Stuarts, if Prince Henry had not died, and Charles I., as was 
intended, had been Archbishop of Canterbury ? " 

This was written in 1844. Since then, would Germany 
have been united if Bismarck had not been born ? And if 
Bismarck had not been born ? In 1 865 a powerful party, 
promising success, reinforced by commanding talent, and con- 
certing an intelligible plan with immense vigour, began to 
demand the disintegration of Great Britain. And if Disraeli 
had not been born ? 

Nothing is more striking in modern parliamentary life 
than the growing neglect of the past. Great issues are mooted 
by men ignorant of, or ignoring, their historical origin. Young 
members discuss weighty problems with no study save that of 



20 DISRAELI 

omniscience. The ancestry of events is disregarded. Develop- 
ment is relegated to musty students and mouldy volumes. 
The fact that statesmanship is able to look forward because 
it has already looked back, is flouted or forgotten. Public 
interest is gradually being withdrawn from debate, just because 
it is getting out of touch with the organic changes of national 
life. The genius which transfigures facts with imagination has 
been replaced by the opportunism which invests emptiness 
with solemnity ; and this, in a country where national growth 
depends on continuous tradition. 

The utterances of Disraeli from the early 'twenties to the 
latest 'seventies display a wonderful harmony of coherence 
in progress. They form one long suite of variations on 
the central motif of persistent and consistent ideas. To 
understand them aright one must view them successively, both 
in his books and his speeches, which illustrate each other ; 
nor in so doing should the contexts of personal development, 
events private as well as public, be lost from sight. 

This I have endeavoured to accomplish in the following 
chapters. I have classified their themes in groups broad enough 
to admit of kindred topics. After a fresh portrait of Disraeli's 
personality, I treat first of his constitutional ideas, because 
these are at the root of his political standpoint ; they underlie, 
too, his conception of the State. Then follows his attitude 
towards Labour and the causes it involved. Next come his 
distinctive views on Church and Christianity ; his views, 
equally distinctive, on Monarchy occupy a separate chapter. 
Colonies, Empire, and Foreign Policy are then grouped 
together ; and it may excite surprise to mark the earliness 
and the correctness of his prophecies. Under this head I 
also consider his thoughts on India. America and Ireland 
succeed ; and here again his justified originality is most re- 
markable. Perhaps the light chapters on Society^ Lite^'ature^ 
Wit, Humour, and Romance, with the closing study of Career, 
may be considered not the least suggestive. I have not drawn 
on Mr. Meynell's delightful " Disraeliana " (the pleasure of 
reading which I purposely postponed), because I wished this 
portraiture of the man and his mind to be wholly original. 



CHAPTER I 
DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 

" A GREAT mind that thinks and feels is never incon- 

/ \ sistent and never insincere. . . . Insincerity is the 
A JL vice of a fool, and inconsistency the blunder of a 
knave. . . . Let us not forget an influence too much 
underrated in this age of bustling mediocrity — the influence of 
individual character. Great spirits may yet arise to guide the 
groaning helm through the world of troubled waters — spirits 
whose proud destiny it may still be at the same time to main- 
tain the glory of the Empire and to secure the happiness of 
the people." 

So wrote "Disraeli the Younger" during the perplexed 
crisis of 1833 in his rare pamphlet, What is kef^ which 
embodies his own large attitude. The sentence is character- 
istic and prophetic. Its last words were repeated more than 
forty years afterwards in the message of farewell to his con- 
stituents, when he quitted the lively scene of his triumphs for 
that grave assemblage, of which he once said that its aptitudes 
were best rehearsed among the tombstones. 

In my last three chapters I shall touch on some unique 
phases of his boyhood, and outline several of his relations to 
his home, to society, to literature, to character, and to career. 
But here I shall attempt a less detailed account of his indi- 
viduality and of the main ideas which flowed from it. 

And first let me venture on two glimpses — one of his 
youth, the other of his age. 

* So called owing to Lord Grey's query in a letter. His brother had 
just opposed the young Disraeli, standing as an " independent " and a 
" reformer" at High (or " Chepping ") Wycombe ; and his brilliant speeches 
on the hustings had been republished as The Crisis Examined. 



22 DISRAELI 

It is not difficult to collect from many scattered present- 
ments some likeness of 

" The wondrous boy 
That wrote Alroy." 

Imagine, then, a romantic figure, a Southern shape in a 
Northern setting, a kind of Mediterranean Byron ; for the 
stock of the Disraelis hailed from the Sephardim — Semites 
who had never quitted the midland coasts, and were powerful 
in Spain before the Goths. The form is lithe and slender, 
with an air of repressed alertness. The stature, above middle 
height. The head, long and compact ; its curls, fantastic. 
The oval face, pale rather than pallid, with dark almond eyes 
of unusual depth, size, and lustre under a veil of drooping 
lashes. The chin, pointed with decision. The expression 
holds one, by turns keen and pensive ; about it hovers a 
strange sense of inner watchfulness and ambushed irony, half 
mocking in defiance, half eager with conscious power. A 
languid reserve marks his bearing ; it conceals a smouldering 
vehemence ; its observant silence prepares amazement directly 
interest excites intercourse. Then indeed the scimitar, as it 
were, flashes forth unsheathed, and dazzles by its breathless 
fence of words with ideas. This ardour is not always pleasant ; 
it breathes of storm ; it speaks out elemental passions and 
grates against the smooth edges of civilisation. In the 
London medley he, like his friend Bulwer, studies a purposed 
posture. Dandyism and listlessness mask unsleeping energy. 
But at Bradenham, his constant retreat, the " Hurstley " of 
his last novel, all is natural and unconstrained. Here at 
least he is free. Here he " drives the quill " with his famous 
father, reads and rides, meditates and is mirthful. Here, with 
that gifted sister " Sa " — " Sa," a name soon afterwards doubly 
endeared to him through Lord Lyndhurst's daughter ; " Sa," 
who, while others doubt or twit, ever believes in and heartens 
him — he dreams, improvises, discourses. The rest may treat 
him as a moonstruck Bombastes,^ but his lofty visions are real 

^ After he had been articled to a firm of solicitors at seventeen, and 
eventually called to the bar, his father had wished him to enter a govern- 
ment office. Cf. Mr. Lake's " Reminiscences." 




'->/ 





\ 


'/' / 


^; 1 


\^ 






v. 


/ 



DISRAELI THE YOUNGER 

After a water colo7ir by A. E. Chalon 



DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 23 

to the gentle insight of affection. In the language of Shake- 
speare's fine colloquy : — 

" ' Say what thou art that talk'st of Kings and Queens ? ' — 

* More than I seem, and less than I was born to.' — 

* Aye, but thou talk'st as if thou wert a King ! ' — 
'Why, so I am in mind, and that's enough.'" 

Already, like one of those his biting pen had satirised, he 
too, it must be owned, teems with " confidence in the nation 
— and himself." There was a daredevilry about him, and in 
those days a romantic melancholy, akin to that of the Spanish 
artist Goya. Far behind have faded those consuming pangs 
of boyish restlessness, when fevered imagination played 
vaguely on inexperience. Far behind, those schools of 
" words " which never slaked his thirst for ideas, and where he 
ran wild as rebel ringleader.^ Far away now, those boxing 
bouts witnessed by Layard's mother. Past, that earliest and 
unpublished novel of Aylmer Papillon^ which Murray praised 
but would not print. Past, that fugitive satire of the " New 
Dunciad," which does not deserve to remain waste-paper.^ 
Past, that abortive journal, which in transforming an old 
periodical while adopting its name was to have revolutionised 
opinion.* Vanished, too, those first outbursts of unchastened 
brilliance under the favouring auspices of the Layards' fair 
kinswoman, Mrs. Austin. And the vista of his two long 

1 Cf. p. 254. 

2 It treated of a hero outlawed under the Alien Act by a Ministry 
resenting a poem {cf. Smiles'" Memoirs of John Murray "). Disraeli had 
also edited a " history " of Paul Jones. Of his early American pamphlet, I 
speak later on. A Mr. Powles — " something in the city " — was concerned 
in assisting both this and the Representative. 

^ Of Keats it sings — 

" Who grasped the Theban shell and struck a tone, 
No master yet had wakened — save its own." 

* It succeeded a respectable pro-Canning and pro-Queen-Caroline 
weekly, to which Disraeli seems to have contributed as a lad also. Its 
foundation brought him to Sir Walter Scott, and ±o Lockhart, who at 
first disdained to be " editor," but melted when Disraeli assured him that 
he would be " Director-general" of a controlling organ. Only a temporary 
breach with Murray was caused by Disraeli's speedy withdrawal from the 
concern. But for Lockhart, as a " tenth-rate novehst," Disraeli expressed 
contempt in 1833, when he proposed to write for \h& Edinburgh, presided 
over by Napier. Cf. British Museum, Add. MS. 34,616, f. 45. 



24 DISRAELI 

journeys have receded ; the alternate spells of Venice, the 
Rhine and Rome, and afterwards of Athens, Constantinople, 
Jerusalem. Past, also, the strange malady for which his 
Eastern travels proved the stranger cure. As he muses, the 
ball is at his feet. Yet, when the daydream fades, is he, 
perhaps, after all, only Alnaschar of the broken glass, bemoan- 
ing vain reveries amid the ruined litter of his overturned 
basket in the jeering market-place ? The seed-time of reflec- 
tion is over: he pants for action. No more for him the 
beaten tracks. Hitherto he had fed on books and dreams. 
^ I The former had led him to a pondered plan, with Bolingbroke 
for clue and Pitt as example. The latter fired his ambition 
— his presumption — to realise them by restoring vanished 
life to a now mouldering party — by suiting old forms to new 
phases and heading them. 
I Next morning the secluded scholar, so friendly a contrast 
with his daring son, is bound for Oxford to receive his long 
delayed honours. This very day that son's earliest election- 
procession starts from the doorway of the tranquil manor 
house.^ Already the budding genius has descried the dim 
future of his country, which he has proclaimed must be 
governed for and through the nation ; of which, too, he has 
already sung in halting verse : — 

"... ceased the voice 
Of Great Britannia ; vanished as it ceased 
Her glance imperial." 

What matter now the debts, the duns, the embarrassments 
for which he blushes ? ^ What matter the heartless allure- 
ments of siren fashion } His course is clear before him. He 
must win. He "has begun several times many things, and 

* This is no imaginary picture. Cf. Isaac Disraeli's letters in the 
British Museum, Add. MS. 34,571, ff. 94, 96. Bradenham Manor, now the 
residence of my friend, Mr. Graves, had been under Queen Anne the seat 
of the Earl of Strafford through his marriage with a City heiress. 

2 In a future chapter I shall revert to this episode, which Disraeli ever 
deplored. His valet, in bachelor days, at 35, Duke Street, St. James — 
one Whittlestone, like Disraeli's servant in the East, Byron's Tita, pro- 
vided for as attendant in a government office 1 by his master — used to retail 
many scraps of such gossip. The young Disraeli's novels, he averred, 
were written in bed. Heroes truly should dispense with valets. 



DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 25 

has often succeeded at last." As for the taunt of " adventurer," 
what are all original spirits that " burst their birth's invidious 
bar " but adventurers ? Such were Chatham,^ and Burke, and 
Canning, and Peel himself. But when the "adventurer" is 
one by temperament as well as occasion, how miraculous 
becomes his progress ! " Adventures are to the adventurous." 

" The man who with undaunted toils 
Sails unknown seas to unknown soils, 
With various wonders feasts his sight : 
What stranger wonders does he write ! " 

Many of us remember Disraeli in his age as he sauntered 
dreamily and slowly with the late Lord Rowton, and none 
who ever heard one of his last orations in the House of Lords 
can forget how, even when he was in pain, he sprang from 
his seat with the quick step of youth. The physical charm 
had disappeared. Few wJio gazed on that drawn countenance 
could have discerned in it the poetry and enthusiasm of his 
prime ; only the unworn eyes preserved their piercing fires, 
and the sunken jaw was still masterful. A long discipline of 
iron self-control, much disillusion, growing disappointments 
with crowning triumphs, and latterly a great desolation, had 
subdued the fiercer force and the elastic buoyancy of his hey- 
day. Yet the intellectual charm, and the spell of mind and 
spirit had deepened their outward traces. Fastidious dis- 
cernment, dispassionate will, penetrating insight, courage,^ 
patience, a certain winning gentleness underneath the scorn 
of shams, stamp every lineament. Below habitual insouciance, 
intensity, bigness of soul and purpose are prominent. The 
arch of the noble brow retains its height and curve. Sur- 
rounded though he be by friends and flatterers, he looks lonelier 
than of old. " I do not feel solitude," he said, " it gives one 
repose." Interested in every movement, and even in every trifle 
that engages thought, his gaze appears more turned within. 

^ In The Press (1853-59) — which vies with Swift in the Examiner 
and Bolingbroke in the Craftsman ^2SiA to which Lord Derby and Shirley 
Brooks also contributed. — Disraeli finely characterises Chatham as " a 
forest oak in a suburban garden." 

2 Of this virtue, singled out with domestic purity by Gladstone for 
praise in Disraeli, the late Lady J. Manners wrote, " He feared nobody 
but God." In my eighth chapter I shall quote Jowett's verdict. 



26 DISRAELI 

We know from Lady John Manners,^ and from other 
sources, how he loved flowers, and forestry, and study during 
the dinner-hour, more than all the social glitter ; how he 
communed with the unseen ; how far-reaching were his 
sympathies ; what interest and curiosity he displayed in 
every form of career and purpose ; how often to all the 
splendour which he had conquered he preferred converse with 
the weak, the lowly, the suffering ; how his wise counsel and 
inexhaustible resource were sought and coveted by cottagers, 
by the toilers whose cause he made his own, by princes ; 
how delicately considerate he was in his appointments, and 
for all in contact with him, how he would sacrifice a keen 
personal wish rather than disturb a pleasure or abridge a 
holiday ; and yet how his playfulness of fancy mixed in pithy 
ironies with his very considerateness, A familiar instance — 
that of the attached servant who was to enjoy " the pleasures 
of memory " — occurred as he lay dying from the illness long 
and bravely concealed even from his intimates. He was truly 
unselfish, and he was never known to blame a subordinate. 
If things went wrong, he took the whole burden on his own 
shoulders. He exerted infinite pains to understand the con- 
ditions of and the organisations aff"ecting labour.^ The Buck- 
inghamshire peasants still cherish his memory ; and it may 
be said with truth that the deepest affections of this extra- 
ordinary man, whom vapid worldlings sneered at as a callous 
cynic, were reserved for his country, his county, his home, and 
his friends, for effort and for distress. Many a young aspir- 
ant to fame, moreover, in literature or public life, has owed 
much to his generous encouragement. He liked to dwell on 
the vicissitudes of things,^ and his own motto, " Forti nihil 
difficile," represents his conviction. In private, when he was 
not entertaining, his habits were of the simplest. In two 
things only he was profuse ; books and light. He loved to 

1 "The Later Years of Lord Beaconsfield," by Janetta, Lady J. 
Manners, Blackwood, 1881. 

2 In 1852 he sought and obtained a long interview with Feargus 
O'Connor, whose correspondence in the Star he had utilised seven 
years before in Sybil. 

3 " Thus, amid all the strange vicissitudes of life, we are ever, as it 
were, moving in a circle." 



DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 27 

see every room of Hughenden illuminated with candles. He 
was utterly careless of money. It is related, that when he 
accepted the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, he sent for the 
celebrated Mr. Padwick, and asked for a necessary advance. 
" On what security ? " inquired the sporting speculator. 
" That of my name and my career," was the answer. And 
the money was at once forthcoming, and punctually repaid. 
As is well known, he would often make his greatest efforts 
half dinnerless ; and his delight was, after the strain and the 
plaudits had ceased, to betake himself in the dim hours of 
dawn to the supper which his devoted wife, who spared him 
every detail of management, had prepared, and there to 
recount to her the excitements of the debate. The pair 
would certainly have endorsed those verses of Lady Mary 
Wortley Montagu, of which Byron was so fond — 

" But when the long hours of public are past, 
And we meet with champagne and a chicken at last, 
May every fond pleasure that moment endear, 
Be banished afar both discretion and fear ! 
Forgetting or scorning the airs of the crowd, 
He may cease to be formal, and I to be proud, 
Till lost in the joy, we confess that we live. 
And he may be rude, and yet I may forgive." 

His public and touching tribute to Mrs. Disraeli deserves 
repetition here ; nor will the reader forget, among many 
hackneyed stories, that stern rebuke to the triflers overheard 
discussing the reasons for his marriage — " Because of a feel- 
ing to which such as you are strangers — gratitude." 

It was at Edinburgh, in 1867, when his old ally, Baillie 
Cochrane (Lord Lamington), toasted Mrs. Disraeli as her 
illustrious husband's helper and his own dear friend for many 
years before Disraeli met her.^ Disraeli opened with the 
characteristic remark that their mutual intimate "certainly 
had every opportunity of studying the subject to which he 
has drawn attention." And he went on to say, " I do owe to 
that lady all I think that I have ever accomplished, because she 
has supported me with her counsel, and consoled me by the 
sweetness of her mind and disposition." Six years after his 

In 1832, 



28 DISRAELI 

marriage, he had dedicated the three volumes of his Sybil, 
"To one whose noble spirit and gentle nature ever prompt 
her to sympathise with the suffering ; to one whose sweet 
voice has often encouraged, and whose taste and judgment 
have ever guided their pages ; the most severe of critics, but 
— a perfect wife." 

Several of his nice things were said in Scotland, and one 
of the nicest was his compliment when he was installed 
Rector of Glasgow University. He described his visit to 
Abbotsford, whither he had repaired in his extreme youth 
with an enthusiastic letter from John Murray the First, his 
father's old friend, to Sir Walter Scott, that father's old 
acquaintance. " He showed me," he said of the laird, " his 
demesne, and he treated me, not as if I was an obscure youth, 
but as if I were already Lord Rector of Glasgow University." ^ 

Disraeli's marriage was the happiest turning-point in his 
career ; and that which had begun partly in interest, soon 
developed into the warmest, the most entire and the most 
mutual affection. Mrs. Disraeli, at a great country house, 
always used to commence conversation by the query, " Do 

you like my Dizzy ? Because, if you don't " From 

another, on a visit most advantageous to him, Disraeli 
departed, despite pressing remonstrance, on the plea that the 
"air" disagreed with Mrs. Disraeli — because she had com- 
plained of their host's rudeness. It will one day be found 
that to this gifted and selfless woman, English history owed 
much at several serious conjunctures. I cannot resist relating 
a good story in another vein. Shortly after Disraeli's marriage, 
a guest at Grosvenor Gate, pointing to a portrait of the late 
Mr. Wyndham Lewis, Mrs. Disraeli's first husband and with 
Disraeli member for Maidstone, asked him whom it repre- 
sented. " Our former colleague," was the rejoinder. At a 
much later date Mr. Frith was painting a group in which 
Disraeli figured. As her husband was going, Mrs. Disraeli 
whispered to the artist, " Remember one thing, if you don't 
mind, his pallor is his beauty." She was afraid that his 
complexion would be coloured. To the last she would say, 

1 His Edinburgh speech of 1867 and his Glasgow address of 1873 — 
on " Representation " and " Equality " respectively rank among his best. 



DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 29 

as she did during his interrupted speech at Aylesbury in 
1847: — '^ He mind them! Not a bit of it. He's a match 
for them all." Sir Horace Rumbold has just told us how, at 
the scene of Disraeli's investiture as Earl, a sob was heard 
from the crowd. It was the grief of an old and faithful servant 
sighing, "Ah ! If only sJie had lived to see him now ! " 

Like childless men in general, he was devoted to children. 
More than one still living remembers his happy words of 
playful intimacy. To women from the days of his pet 
Sheridans to those of the present Lady Currie, he appealed 
with magnetism throughout his career, and there are few 
more romantic episodes than his meetings, after hesitation, 
with the elderly Mrs. Bridges Williams at the fountain in the 
Exhibition of 1862, the existing correspondence which ensued, 
and the thumping legacy which crowned it. One who has 
read that correspondence has assured me that its gentle 
chivalry is most striking. In the midst of engrossing occu- 
pation he never ceased to cheer the old lady with gossip of 
his doings, and even to argue with her, as on an affair of state, 
regarding the advisability of Struve's seltzer water as a remedy. 

Of Queen Victoria's affection for him I will only say that 
it was because he treated her as a woman. She grew to lean 
on his wisdom and his judgment. On more than one occa- 
sion he acted as mediator in her family. He was sincerely 
attached to her. His witticism, when asked for a reason of 
her favour, will bear repetition : " I never argue, I never con- 
tradict, but I sometimes forget." 

His influence over the late Queen was more remarkable 
even than has hitherto been disclosed. And in this regard I 
am able to state that, while out of office, he negotiated with 
extreme tact, under delicate circumstances, the peerage con- 
ferred on a most amiable prince, now no more ; and further, 
that at each stage of all its bearings Queen Victoria consulted 
and deferred to his counsel, kindness, and resource. I may 
add that he also devised a means of providing the same 
lamented prince with an absorbing occupation. 

He was a firm friend ; loyalty he always extolled as a 
sovereign virtue. Not many have the faculty for friendship 
in, old age as Lord Beaconsfield had it. His passion for 



30 DISRAELI 

mastery, his addiction to mystery were rivalled by his immense 
faithfulness. If he was always " the man of d^tiny," he was 
also ever " faithful unto death." And his real friendships were 
warm as well as constant. While he was at Glasgow to be 
inaugurated Lord Rector of its University, he heard good 
tidings of an old associate. " Mrs. Disraeli and I," he wrote, 
"were over-joyed, and we danced a Highland fling in our 
nightgowns." The picture raises a smile,^ but it also strikes 
an unexpected chord. 

Of music and of art in general he was a devotee, as many 
passages in his novels attest. He had his own theories of 
their influence on composition and on literature. Murillo 
was his favourite painter, Mozart his favourite composer. 
He ever deplored the insensibility of the Government to the 
duty of elevating taste for the beautiful. When the Blacas 
collection of gems was in the market at the price of ;^7o,ooo, 
the Administration of the day at first refused to entertain the 
purchase, but Disraeli persuaded them by offering to find the 
money himself, if they persisted. In this case, as in so many 
others (notably that of the Suez Canal shares), imagination 
forwarded the public interest ; for this collection is now worth 
some threefold of what was expended. When a great work by 
Raphael was offered to the Government, and Disraeli's col- 
leagues were in doubt, Disraeli sent for the leading dealer, in 
whose hands the commission had been placed, inspected the 
picture -himself, discoursed charmingly and critically of its 
merits, with the result that' it is now in the National Gallery. 
Since even trifles about the eminent possess interest, I may 
add the following story of his old age. He was showing 
a distinguished visitor (still living) his family portraits at 
Hughenden. He paused before a pastel of a lovely child 
wafted by seraphs through the skies. " That," he exclaimed, 
" is a pet picture ; observe how exquisitely the draperies of 
the angels are arranged. The bab/s me! " His fondness for 
beautiful form extended to his own handwriting. 

^ So also does another. Lady Beaconsfield, waiting up, as was her 
wont even in extreme age, for her husband's return after a critical effort, 
entered the library in the small hours of the morning (and in nigligie)^ 
and impetuously embraced what turned out to be Lord Cairns writing an 
im ortant minute before Disraeli's arrival. 



DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 31 

In matters of courtesy he was old-fashioned and punctilious. 
To the last he resented that grotesque disfigurement which 
was beginning to make manners ugly before he died. Even 
at an earlier date, " Manners are easy," said " Coningsby," 
"and life is hard." "And I wish to see things exactly the 
reverse," said "Lord Henry," "the modes of subsistence less 
difficult, the conduct of life more ceremonious." 

In his fiction it was often objected that he over-depicted 
great splendour and supreme beauty ; that it was thronged 
with "daughters" and mansions "of the gods." But, if he 
erred in these respects, it was from familiarity and not from 
ostentation, as Lady John Manners has pointed out at 
some length. " It must be recollected," she wrote, thinking of 
Lothair, " that many of those who most appreciated him, and 
whose friendship he warmly reciprocated, are surrounded in 
daily life by a certain amount of state which employs their 
dependants." So, too, with regard to the peaceful and 
prosperous marriages of those homes of forty years ago on 
which he delighted to dwell. He loved the gentle Bucking- 
hamshire landscape, with its treasures of association in every 
cranny, more than all the remembered luxuriance of the South 
and glare of the East. And it should also be remembered that 
his works abound in sympathetic descriptions of all kinds and 
conditions of men, including the strangest and humblest. 
They were taken from personal observation, and he himself 
would penetrate the queerest haunts to gain the most curious 
insight. The common and the uncommon people fascinated 
him, for in them he found ideas ; the middling charmed him 
less. He delighted to invest the seemingly commonplace with 
significance, and also to strip the pretentiously important of its 
wonder. Not even Dickens, as I shall hint hereafter, knew or 
loved his London better. I shall also, in the proper place, 
touch on the exotic element in his style and accent. Mr. 
John Morley has aptly compared it to Goethe's dictum about 
St. Peter's, that, though it is baroque, it is always the expression 
of something great and not merely grandiose. His big words 
are never for little things. Undoubtedly some of his earliest 
works are deficient in taste ; and there is a certain fierce 
hardness in their abrupt violence. Mrs. Austin advised him 



32 DISRAELI 

in omissions from the original manuscript of Vivian Grey ; it 
was to women that he owed his training in these directions. 
His knowledge was vast and profound, and he exercised the 
habit of pursuing long trains of thought in reflection. He 
seldom worked at night, preferring that season for brooding 
over his ideas. But at all times, contrary to the superficial 
opinion, he worked long and hard, sometimes over ten hours 
a day. His gift of divination never dimmed his passion for 
study, until old age and ill-health warned him that it must 
pause. He never ceased to deplore the want of " that bound- 
less leisure which we literary men need." To the last, as Lord 
Iddesleigh has pointed out, he studied the Bible in the earliest 
hours. In church attendance he was what Mr. Gladstone used 
to call a " oncer." He was a regular communicant. 

By success he was never inflated, by reversals never de- 
pressed, although by nature elastic.^ It was not until 1874 
that his power became wholly unfettered, and then foreign 
crisis claimed the attention that he longed to bestow on 
social improvements and Colonial Confederation. His three 
previous spans of office had been equally brief For some 
twenty years he headed, at intervals, a despairing Opposi- 
tion, whose mistrustful murmurs had to be stilled, whose 
doubts had to be dispelled, and the immense difficulties of 
whose management he has graphically portrayed in a notable 
passage from his Life of Lord George Bentinck. To the 
printed diatribes which assailed him he was indifferent. 
In parliamentary generalship, demanding an infinite insight 
and management, an instant recognition of movements in the 
mass, and " creation of opportunity," he was unsurpassed even 
by Peel, who played on Parliament " as on an old fiddle." To 
his urgent control even so early as 1854, and when out of office, 
the correspondence with Spencer Walpole affords a striking 
insight. " My dear Walpole," he writes on November 29 of 
that year, " remember to write to the Queen if anything of 
interest happens to-night. Tell somebody, Harry Lennox or 
another, to send me a bulletin by this messenger of what is 
taking place, but not later than ten o'clock, as I shall retire 

^ When Lord Derby came in in 1852, "At last we have got a status," 
he said ; *' I feel like a young girl going to her first ball." 



DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 33 

early, that being my only chance. Be positive that the 
financial statement will be made on Friday." ^ 

What he really valued in power was its faculty of influence. 
Otherwise it was bitter-sweet. He once told a high aspirant 
for high office, that as for its pleasures, they lay chiefly in con- 
trasting the knowledge it afforded of what was really being 
done with the ridiculous chatter about affairs in the circles that 
one frequented. 

His wit, his brightness of humour, and lightness of touch, 
long prevented many of his contemporaries from taking him 
seriously. Literary statesmen are often belittled by their 
generation ; imaginative statesmen, always. They have 
usually to await a career after death. The stereotyped 
character imposed on him till his pluck and power appealed 
to the nation at large was largely due to the old Whigs 
(" oligarchy is ever hostile to genius " ^), who for years refused 
to regard him with anything but amusement, yet whose 
drawing-rooms had been the readiest to applaud those 
sparkling sallies of 1845 and 1846 that demolished the pre- 
mier whom they too wished to destroy ; that coterie so long 
trained to make popular causes preserve their exclusive power, 
and of whom he wrote in 1833, "A Tory, a Radical, I under- 
stand ; a Whig, a democratic aristocrat, I cannot comprehend." 
It was not due to the Peelites, who frankly hated him as an 
open foe. Even the Liberals (many of whom he counted as 
personal friends), when he warned them of the underground 
rumblings, ominous of social earthquake in Ireland, shrugged 
their shoulders ; and when he was reported, glass in eye, to 
have answered a duchess inquisitive about the exact date of 
the dissolution with " You darling," they split their sides, and 
guffawed, " There he is again ! " They agreed with his old 
family acquaintance, Bernal Osborne (if it was he), to whom 
the heartlessness was attributed of saying, when Lord Beacons- 
field was stricken with his lingering illness, " Overdoing it, 
as usual." 

And yet how interesting it is to find Disraeli in the 

' British Museum Add. MS. 34,645, f. 19. 

2 In 7"^^ Pr^jj Disraeli illustrates this historical fact with infinite know- 
ledge in a remarkable passage. 

D 



34 DISRAELI 

Grant-Duff diaries discoursing eagerly in the faint dawn on 
Westminster Bridge of Lord John Russell. Perhaps Disraeli's 
greatest admirer among opponents was Cobden, and that 
admiration was warmly returned. Both of them had one 
great virtue in common, and a rare one, especially in public 
life — gratitude ; and both could afford to be generous. Read 
the letter now first disclosed by Mr. John Morley, whose 
literary appreciation of Disraeli is manifest, in which Disraeli 
sought to win Gladstone with " deign to be magnanimous." 

Disraeli's own magnanimity — frankly owned by Mr. Glad- 
stone — was conspicuous though it is unfamiliar. During the 
decade of the 'fifties, on at least four occasions ^ he offered to 
sacrifice his personal position to Graham, Palmerston, and 
Gladstone successively for the interests of his country and 
his party. In 1868 and 1869 he indignantly defended the last 
against the carping " tail " of his supporters, rebuking alike the 
" frothy spouters of sedition," and those who preferred remem- 
brance of " accidental errors " to gratitude for " splendid gifts 
and signal services." His unstinted praise of worthy foes, his 
conduct even towards the ostracised Dr. Kenealy, are constant 
proofs of a leading trait. He always forebore to strike an oppo- 
nent to please the whim or the passion of the popular breeze. 

A propos of Mr. Gladstone, who himself paid a tribute to 
the absence of rancour in his rival, I may be permitted to 
recall an anecdote told me by the late Sir John Millais. 
When Disraeli stood (though then suffering, he refused to 
sit^ for his last portrait, his " dear Apelles " noticed his gaze 
riveted on an engraving of the artist's fine portrait of the 
great premier. " Would you care to have it ? " he inquired. 
" I was rather shy of offering it to you." " I should be 
delighted to have it," was the reply. "Don't imagine that 
I have ever disliked Mr. Gladstone ; on the contrary, my only 
difficulty with him has been that I cotcld never tmderstand Mm." 
And Carlyle himself thawed when Disraeli, whom he had so 
long hysterically abused, but many of whose ideas, as I shall 
prove, he shared, offered him public recognition in a letter 
which gave as a reason for uninheritable honours, " I have 
remembered that you too, like myself, are childless." But 

1 In 1850, 1852, 1855, and 1859. 



DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 35 

Carlyle, who had aspersed him, never denied that he looked 
facts in the face without mistaking phantoms for them. Even 
from the first he owned length of view. In his old age a certain 
far-awayness of expression was very noticeable. 

I have mentioned Mr. Gladstone. It was well for England 
that two great attitudes towards great questions should have 
been thrown into sharp relief for nearly a score of years by 
the duel between two great personalities ; and it was also well 
for Disraeli that "England does not love coalitions." We 
know from Mr. Gladstone's own lips that much in his rival 
had won his respect, while from Mr. Morley we glean that 
Mr. Gladstone even struggled with a sort of subacid liking for 
one whom he too could " never comprehend." ^ The letters of 
both after Lady Beaconsfield's death are refreshing instances 
of how sworn enemies of the arena may grasp hands under 
the softening solemnity of bereavement, and for a moment 
forget the hard words which, under irritation, they certainly 
used of each other. 

Disraeli was older than Gladstone, and had been early 
acquainted with him. In the 'thirties he sat next to "young 
Gladstone" at the Academy dinner, and regretted that he 
had been relegated from " the wits," with whom he had been 
ranged in the year previous, to "the politicians." In the 
'forties Disraeli made one of his few mistakes in prognostic, 
when he wrote to his sister, " I doubt if he has an ' avenir ' ; " 
but the significance of Gladstone's resignation at this juncture 
on " Maynooth," and the peculiar circumstances of the Peelites 
must be borne in mind. Disraeli could scarcely then divine 
the surprises of oscillation in store. 

Except in vigour of undaunted character, and in a sort of 
inward loneliness, their qualities were opposed. The intensity 
of the one was austere, imperious, imposing, and didactic ; of 
the other, buoyant, lively, and poignant. Frequently the 

• Like most of the Peelites, Mr. Gladstone was not proof against a 
certain air of over-righteous condescension and patronage. Even in the 
'sixties he notes in his diary that, meeting Disraeli at a time of trial, he 
extended his hand, which was " kindly accepted." But he honestly 
admired his gifts, and in 1859 generously disdained to "bargain "him 
" out of the saddle." 



36 DISRAELI 

flippancy of certain leaders provoked his gravity ; more fre- 
quently the solemnity of others upset his own. Gladstone 
moved by violent reaction and hasty rebound ; Disraeli, by a 
spring of step, it is true, but of a step measured, wary, and 
equal. Disraeli stamped himself on his age ; it was often the 
" Time-Spirit " that impressed itself on Mr. Gladstone, a list of 
whose changeful "convictions" ^ from 1836 to 1896 might fill 
a small volume. Again, Disraeli's utterance left a stronger 
sense of reserve power, of something serious behind the veil. 
Mr. Gladstone's phases, always sincere, in the main struck more 
the conscience of certain sections ; Disraeli's ideas, the national 
feelings. Mr. Gladstone's subtleties were those of a theologian ; 
they did not quicken the lay mind. Disraeli's were the subtle- 
ties of an artist ; they put things in new perspectives. It 
might be said that by nature and unconscious bent, the one 
hid simplicity under the form of subtlety, while with the 
other the process was the converse. In oratory, Mr. Glad- 
stone convinced by height and redundance of enthusiasm, by 
depth of feeling and weight or wealth of words and gestures ; 
Disraeli, more by grasp, incisiveness, and point ; his imagina- 
tion played all round many sides of his subject. Gladstone's 
eloquence resembled the storminess and the mist of the North 
Sea ; Disraeli's, the strange lights and shadows, the subtle and 
tideless lustre of the Mediterranean. As Mr. Gladstone warmed 
to his theme, he increased in eloquence ; his perorations are 
always great. It was in peroration that Disraeli sometimes 
failed, except in his after-dinner speeches, which never missed 
fire from start to finish. 

Mr. Gladstone was saturated, Disraeli tinctured, with the 
classics. Mr. Gladstone was essentially the scholar, and he was 
Homeric, while Disraeli was Horatian and Tacitean. His ready 
acquaintance with Latin masterpieces was shown when he first 

» Not only convictions, but tactics also. Mr. Gladstone often blamed 
actions in others which he afterwards adopted ; Disraeli never did. I 
subjoin a few instances. In 1852 he blamed Disraeli's budget-proposal 
for repealing half the malt tax ; he himself afterwards repealed the whole. 
In 1867 he blamed Disraeli's first introduction of the Reform Act by 
resolutions ; next year he did the same with his Irish Church Bill. In 
1869 he severely blamed Disraeli for resigning without meeting Parlia- 
ment ; in 1874 he himself followed suit. 



DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 37 

took the oaths as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and hit off a 
most happy quotation on the spur of the moment ; nor will it 
be forgotten that once, when he was citing a classic in the 
House, he added, "Which, for the sake of the successful 
capitalists around me, I will now try to translate." 

Again, despite Mr. Gladstone's immense versatility, there 
was always something cloistral about him. He himself con- 
fessed that till he was fifty he did not " know the world." I 
venture to doubt if he ever knew it, and it was just this 
academic simplicity that so often led his huge brain-power to 
deal with unsubstantial material. 

Mr. Gladstone will not live through his books. He was 
far more a writer than an author, though he was always 
distinguished in all his undertakings. But he was doctrinaire ; 
and he was almost devoid of any real sense of humour. On 
the appearance of "Nicholas Nickleby" he owned its merit, 
but singled out its pathos with the criticism that he was 
grieved by the absence from it of the religious sentiment — 
" No Church ! " In this respect Disraeli and Gladstone were 
brought into amusing contrast during the Bulgarian atrocity 
campaign. Mr. Gladstone had characterised the Premier's 
attitude as "diabolical." Disraeli, in a speech, referred to 
Mr. Gladstone's having called him " a devil." Mr. Gladstone 
denied the impeachment, and asked for verse and chapter. 
Disraeli rejoined by writing that "the gentlemen who so 
kindly assist me in the conduct of public affairs " had used 
their best endeavours to ascertain the precise time and place 
when the Prince of Darkness had been named, but hitherto 
v^ithout success. 

A famous bookseller, with whom both statesmen frequently 
conversed, used to recount that Disraeli once inquired, as was 
his wont, what of new interest was forthcoming. He men- 
tioned one of Mr. Gladstone's Vatican pamphlets. "No," 
was the answer ; " please not that. Mr. Gladstone is a power- 
ful writer, but nothing that he writes is literature." 

In the House of Commons Disraeli had schooled himself 
from the first to conceal, the emotions of a nature naturally 
quick and sensitive. He early lit on two mechanical devices 
for this purpose : the one was to stroke his knees regularly 



38 DISRAELI 

with his hand, the other to scan the clock. When he was 
much angered it was only by a change of colour that his 
agitation was ever betrayed. It must be confessed that he 
loved to "draw" Mr. Gladstone, and those who remember 
how, when Disraeli sat down and relapsed into impassivity, 
Mr. Gladstone jumped up with a look of rage and a voice of 
thunder, will admit that both performances were perfect. But 
the audience expected the scene which became habitual, and 
even supreme actors are influenced by the expectation of 
their audience. Neither Gladstone nor Disraeli ever stooped 
to ill-nature. Great men are not petty. But the moral 
indignation of the one, and the intellectual indignation of the 
other, which sometimes exchanged places, lent the semblance 
of pique or of quarrel. Disraeli's dislike of spleen is well 
displayed by what he once said of Abraham Hayward, the 
caustic reviewer : " If that man were to be run over in the 
streets, you would see his venom swimming in the gutters." 

In debate, Disraeli's characteristics were a quick readiness 
and an inexhaustible power of diverting discussion to new 
channels and of defeating expectation. The occasion when, 
in reply to Mr. Whalley concerning the Jesuits, he answered 
that one of their pet devices was to send over Jesuits in 
disguise to decry the Jesuits, will recur to the memory. His 
power of literary illustration needs no comment. Two brilliant 
instances are that of the boots of the Lion embracing the 
chambermaid of the Boar in connection with the Edinburgh 
and Quarterly Reviews, and that charming one about the 
Abyssinian expedition, where he reminded us that the standard 
of St. George was flying over the mountains of Rasselas.^ In 
retort he was supreme. Two of the best instances are to be 
noted in the rejoinder to Peel about "candid friends" and 
Canning, and in the pause he made when in a much later 
speech he said, "I have never attacked any one" (cries of 
" Peel ") " unless I was first assailed." I shall relate some 
others hereafter. His self-imposed impassiveness of de- 
meanour in the House was that of a sentinel on bivouac ; it 
became exaggerated by the contrast of his illustrious compeer's 

^ Some of the best in his earliest speeches are derived from " Don 
Quixote." 



DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 39 

extreme excitability. Disraeli was very zealous for the 
honour of the House in which he passed the greater portion 
of his life. On one occasion a young and violent adversary 
insinuated that Disraeli had told a lie. Disraeli calmly cleared 
himself to the general satisfaction, and his denouncer began 
to feel uncomfortable ; still more so when he was sent for to 
the great man's private room. What was his surprise when 
he was shaken warmly by the hand. " We all make mistakes," 
said Disraeli, " when we are young. But please to remember all 
your life that the House of Commons is a house of gentlemen." 
For sheer insight into the march of ideas and reach of 
vision there is no comparison between the two. Even in the 
'forties Disraeli perceived that the coming choice lay between 
absolute democracy and a monarchical democracy. After- 
wards — in the early 'fifties, while monarchy in England was 
still far from popular — he laid his plans — as is apparent from 
his contributions to his organ, The Press, in 1853 — to popu- 
larise monarchy and educate democracy before enfranchising 
it ; and, not till that was accomplished, to re-imperialise Great 
Britain. "He has not," he wrote in 1853 of Lord John 
Russell, "comprehended that for the last twenty years the 
choice is between the maintenance of those institutions and 
habits of thought which preserve monarchy, and that gradual 
change into absolute democracy to which Tocqueville some- 
where rashly considered all the tendencies of our age impel 
the destinies of Europe. . . . The Whigs should have been 
conservative of the reformed constitution, and have developed 
it. . . ."^ While Gladstone was refining a rather tortuous 
conscience into making the forlorn Peelites alternate between 
the Conservatives and the Whigs, Disraeli was reconstructing 
and developing a national party. While Gladstone and 
Sidney Herbert, in righteous indignation at Peel's memory, 
were enraged at the delinquency of not struggling for absolute 
protection when the Derby Ministry assumed office, Disraeli 
showed that the principle of his struggle (continued as 
regarded the sugar repeal) had been land and labour. He 
must now benefit these by alleviations, rather than, as a 
responsible Minister, attempt an upheaval of what the nation 

1 Letters to the Whigs, The Press, May 7, 1853. 



40 DISRAELI 

had finally endorsed, and set private opinion as to particular 
measures at variance with the possibility of government at 
all. Had he done so he would have been doing what Fox 
himself had not attempted with regard to Catholic emanci- 
pation, what Lord John Russell had not thought of in 1847, 
what no responsible Minister could have compassed, and 
what, Lord John Russell added, the Whigs could not do in 
1835. And yet, out of sheer honest hatred, he was vilified 
by those "high and stubborn spirits who, with the severity 
peculiar to those censors who cannot aspire to be consuls, 
refuse to acknowledge that there could be any virtue of 
necessity, . . . and could not enlarge their comprehension 
of the requisites of a statesman beyond quotations from 
' Hansard.' There were surely some juster thinkers in the 
House of Commons who must have trembled at the doctrine 
that men in office are rigidly to carry out the opinions they 
proposed in opposition." ^ That, he points out, is the 
function of opposition, and the duty of supporting opinions 
which a nation has cancelled never arises unless those 
opinions have sent you to office. As he puts it, "Themis 
is the goddess of opposition, but Nemesis sits in Downing 
Street." In the overthrow of Peel lay a very different moral, 
and by that overthrow he wished to lay bare the choice 
between " Liberal opinions " and " popular principles," between 
Peel's sudden adoption of the " physical enjoyment " theory 
of regeneration and his own. By that destruction he eventu- 
ally ended the Whigs and Peelites alike, and set before the 
country the true choice that awaited it, instead of the per- 
plexity of parties ^ which, joined to detestation of himself, 
caused the coalition of 1853 and prevented the contrast of 
the ideas which really divided the minds of men from being 
prominent in true proportions. 

^ Letters to the Whigs, The Press, May 14, 1853. 

* DisraeU always insisted on the indispensability of the party system. 
As he pointed out of BoUngbroke, so in his own case, the idea of a 
" national " party had to be accommodated to conservatism. Gladstone, 
too, said of Peel, in 1846, that "to abjure party was impossible" (Morley, 
i. 295 ; cf. Disraeli's Life of Lord George Bentinck, p. 224). After repeal 
was carried, Peel gave great offence to his followers — and especially to Mr. 
Gladstone — ^by singling out its illustrious and original champion for praise. 



DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 41 

As a practical statesman, Disraeli thought more of those 
moral elements by which the State can square private duty 
with public interest ; Gladstone, more of those elements above 
and beyond conduct. Gladstone was perhaps more of an 
apostle, Disraeli of a seer. Gladstone owned a noble heart 
with lofty spiritual standards, and an enormous quality of 
moral resentment ; but his Church views coloured his life as 
much as his religious convictions, while his minute and per- 
plexing scruples too often changed the forms of his enthusi- 
asms, led zeal to chime with prejudice, and sometimes sent 
him astray altogether into self-deception. 

Gladstone was a strange compound of diverse elements — 
of Highlander and Lowlander, of Scotland, Liverpool, Oxford, 
and Italy. In some respects he might even be termed the 
Dante of politics ; but in others he was occasionally deemed 
its Ignatius Loyala. Disraeli, on the other hand, depended 
on his singular force of independence and of native sight and 
foresight. Those who admired the early Gladstone as Sir 
Galahad never wished him to sit on the seat of Merlin ; nay, 
Gladstone himself perpetually deemed Disraeli, Machiavelli, 
or even Cagliostro. In relation to Disraeli, Gladstone would 
have perhaps addressed England with " O foolish Galatians, 
who hath bewitched you ? " while Disraeli might have retorted 
by the witticism of Sarah, Duchess of Marborough, on the 
eagerness of James the Second to drag his country to heaven 
with him. It was just Disraeli's originality and length of 
view that caused him to be maligned as well as misunder- 
stood, though by some his conduct towards Peel was not un- 
naturally eyed askance. And yet, in Mr. Morley's " Life," 
Lord John Russell is to be found vindicating his own share in 
that transaction,'- and Sir James Graham himself admitting 
that Peel provoked what he suffered.^ In the eyes of many, 

1 " As for the Irish bill on which he had turned Peel out, it was one of 
the worst of all coercion bills ; Peel, with 117 followers, evidently could 
not have carried on the Government, and what sense could there have 
been in voting for a bad bill in order to retain in office an impossible 
Ministry ? " — He might have added that the bill — supported some months 
earlier by Lord John and Lord G. Bentinck — under protest as only 
excusable through urgency, was delayed by Peel to carry the repeal, until 
its necessity had vanished. 

2 He said (1846) : ". . . It was no wonder they (the Protectionists) 



42 DISRAELI 

Gladstone was Homer's "old man of the sea" trying to hold 
Proteus, and yet none proved more Protean through enlarging 
aspirations than "the old man" himself. Perhaps Gladstone 
regarded the world more as the " Pilgrim's Progress," Disraeli 
more as "Vanity Fair." Gladstone had more sail/ Disraeli 
more ballast. The one floated on waves of agitation, the other 
desired a strong government by steadying the people and 
attaching them to institutions. Moreover, Gladstone con- 
stantly viewed the State from the standpoint of his particular 
Church opinions. Disraeli believed that the principle of 
the Revolution had never been perfected by the due de- 
velopment of popular institutions. He agreed with Pym 
that " the best form of government is that which doth dispose 
and actuate every part and member of a State to the common 
good." 

Disraeli owned, of course, his foibles, though he was too 
proud ever to be very vain. As we shall find later on, when 
I come to his faults of temperament, his grasp of ideas occa- 
sionally pressed them too literally both on life and letters. 
He tended to overstrain his lights and shadows. His imagina- 
tion sometimes ran riot in its colours, and throughout tended 
to exaggerate the forms of events, though hardly ever their 
significance, which he was often the first to divine. He is 
said to have cherished some superstitions about lucky days 
and unlucky colours, but for these I cannot vouch. I can, 
however, for the fact that he was once seen by intimates to 
wear a green velvet smoking-coat, though one of the few 
occasions on which he troubled the newspapers was to refute 

regarded themselves as betrayed, and unfortunately it had been the fate 
of Sir R. Peel to perform the same operation twice." From the party stand- 
point there was abundant justification. Gladstone in old age declared 
that Disraeli's brilliant philippics surpassed even their reputation, and 
that, under their lash, Peel sat powerless." Cf. Morley's " Gladstone," i. 
296, iii. 465. " Dealt with them with a kind of righteous dulness " — " The 
Protectionist secession due to three men, Derby contributed prestige ; 
Bentinck backbone ; and Dizzy parliamentary brains." The real fault 
found with Disraeli by his enemies (but afterwards) was that he " did not 
care a straw " for Protection. The reader must judge after my two next 
chapters. 

^ It was a sail, however, that could not bear being crossed by contrary 
winds. From youth upwards Gladstone could never brook opposition. 



DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 43 

the slander of having, when young, appeared in green trousers.^ 
And here I may perhaps be pardoned for inserting a slight 
story about Mrs. Disraeli, which comes from the same source 
as the last. Dr. Guthrie was once staying at Grosvenor Gate, 
and invited his hostess to visit him at Glasgow. " I will," she 
smiled, " if you will promise to wear your kilt in the streets." 
" Perhaps I will," he replied, with hesitation. " You had better 
be careful, Guthrie," interposed Disraeli, "for that woman, I 
assure you, means what she says." 

In taste and in phrase he was naturally extravagant, but 
his epigrams were never for the sake of paradox, and were 
always the summaries of wisdom and reflection. They were 
light, not frivolous ; they were imaginative proverbs. There 
never was a wittier man, and his wit lent itself to his ironic 
humour. He loved effects that struck imagination, but ever 
for a crucial purpose. It was said of him by an intimate that 
one of his sentences — and in conversation he was sparing — 
left more behind than a long talk with others of consummate 
talent. As for the scathing sarcasm — his weapon of self- 
defence during his earlier stages — at times over-savage and 
belying his normal cheeriness — sobriety of judgment is com- 
patible with — 

" The stinging of a heart the world hath stung." 

But, undoubtedly, the too quick transitions of a susceptible 
fancy from — 

" Grave to gay, from lively to severe," 

often irritated and even offended not only the dull, but the 
serious. And yet in life, as in literature, is there more than 
one step in the descent from the sublime to the ridiculous ? 

Like all celebrated wits, he suffered both from the ascrip- 
tion of his own bons mots to others, and from those of others 
being fathered upon him. Thus the "without a redeeming 

^ In 1 83 1 Sir Henry Bulwer — teste Mr. Frederick Greenwood — was 
asked by his famous brother to meet his marvellous new friend at dinner. 
The company was all young, ambitious, and able ; yet all agreed that their 
master was " the man in the green trousers." Perhaps they were not quite 
so green as Sir Henry's recollection painted them. 



44 DISRAELI 

vice " (about Lord Hatherley) was his, not Westbury's, 
while the "dinner all cold except the ices," was said not 
by him, but by Sir David Dundas. His pithy sentences 
were simply one manifestation of his naturally laconic turn of 
mind. 

He was occasionally over-adroit, especially in his desire to 
gain distinguished recruits for his party ; and he sometimes, 
perhaps, magnified the machinations of secret conspiracies, 
although their hidden tyranny was gauged by him with 
unerring instinct. His predilection both in art and nature was 
for extremes. Full of atmosphere himself, he owned the social 
nerves which suffer overmuch from lack of it in others. He 
detested bores, those masterpieces of nature's bad art. One 
of them (if I may say so without disrespect to his kindness 
and amiability, since departed) has told with artless humour 
how at one of the last dinner-parties that Lord Beaconsfield 
attended, he engaged him in conversation, but was pained to 
notice how ill and absent he seemed. Suddenly, however, on 
the arrival of a distinguished guest, a Russian diplomatist, 
the great man brightened and grew young again, as if by 
miracle ! 

After his elevation to the peerage,^ when he would often 
revisit the " glimpses of the moon," and watch new members 
with rapt interest, on one occasion he listened patiently to a 
long speech of ideal dreariness from the lips of one unknown 
to him. He inquired, as usual, who the speaker was, and 

learned that Mr. had no other peculiarity but deafness. 

" Poor fellow ! " he sighed, " and yet he seems unaware of his 
natural advantages. He cannot hear himself speak." 

Of Disraeli's attitude towards fashionable society, as well 
as towards that which really fascinated him, I shall say more 
in my eighth chapter ; but one incident of his old age must 
be presented here. I can vouch for it, since it was told me 
by an eye-witness— a political opponent. 

It was after " Peace with honour " ^ — after he had 

1 The title of" Beaconsfield," long before foreshadowed in Vivian Grey, 
was adopted in homage to the abode of Burke. 

2 This phrase was used by Disraeli in a speech of the 'fifties. Its 
origin, though not its phrasing, is to be found in Bolingbroke. 



DISRAELI'S PEHSONALITY 45 

"descended from the Teutonic chariot," after the congress where 
he discovered the alternative Russian map of Bulgaria, con- 
cealed by diplomacy, where he earned Bismarck's undying 
praise and admiration. The scene was a magnificent reunion 
in an historic mansion. All the fine flower of society was 
gathered in a galaxy of splendour and of grandeur. In one 
of the saloons a brilliant crowd was awaiting Lord Beacons- 
field's entry. As the big doors opened, a thrill went through 
them. Haughty ladies in the feeling of the moment made 
obeisance as if to royalty, while that pale figure with the in- 
scrutable smile passed along their serried ranks. Unmoved 
and immovable, he went straight forward, his eyes fixed on 
the future, scarcely conscious of their presence, except for 
his recognition of their homage. 

Such are some of his leading features. They combine and 
reconcile the seeming contradictions of a nature at once calm 
and impetuous, deep and light, astute and far-seeing in affairs 
of importance ; in trifles, careless. These contrasts, united by 
genius, pursue the forms of his mind — his ideas. He was, of 
course, no monster of consistency, but the ideas that animated 
his actions and utterance sprang from a singularly consistent 
outlook and a most definite personality. In every case they 
were the outcome on the one hand of his race, on the other 
of his nationality. The antithesis between nationality and 
mere race is most important, and too often ignored. There is 
no such thing as a nation of a single strain. The national idea 
is the fusion of reconcilable races, the creation of an artificial 
and ideal individuality, of a consolidating pattern ; the absorp- 
tion of discordant races and their replacement by a central 
idea which subordinates instinct to society. Later civilisation 
means little else, if we reflect, than a gradual process of this 
description ; and it is not a little curious that the distinctive 
greatness of English literature is largely due to the admission 
and naturalisation of foreign influences — to England's free 
trade in ideas, to the openness of her literary ports. What 
would it have proved had it remained purely insular ; if Italy, 
France, and Germany had not infused both form and spirit ; 
above all, if it had not been inspired by the noble rhythm of 
the Englished Bible and by the supreme models of Greece and 



46 DISRAELI 

Rome ? Disraeli's wit, which is to find a due consideration 
hereafter, is half eighteenth century in form, half talmudic. 
The shape of his ideas was also partly determined by the 
time of his birth and by the circumstances of his home. 

He was born at the parting of the ways. His early read- 
ing, and, indeed, his cast of mind, were steeped in the style 
of the eighteenth century ; but the movements of the nine- 
teenth, the significance of the French Revolution and of 
Napoleon, who had made all things new, simmered in him 
from the first, and his earliest reflections were how to attune 
the democratic idea to the vital institutions of an ancient 
empire. As regards his home, he was truly, as he has put it, 
" born in a library ; " and this circumstance contributed as 
much as others to a certain detachment of thought which in 
politics afforded him the clue to the character of movements, 
and, above all, to the movements of character ; in fiction, as 
will be apparent from my ninth chapter, it led him to regard 
things as they appeared of themselves, and not always as they 
seemed to others ; while under the play of fancy he trans- 
posed their outward environments to accentuate their essence. 
Of his father, himself a most interesting study, I shall have 
more to say in my eighth chapter. Here, I only wish to draw 
attention to the fact that Isaac Disraeli's influence on his 
son's ideas was twofold. On the one hand, his views on " pre- 
disposition," on the use of solitude, on the true meaning of 
education, on historical " cause and pretext," on the hollowness 
of "joint-stock felicity," on the self-recognition of creative 
minds before their late acknowledgment by contemporaries, 
with others glanced at in my later chapters, were directly 
derived by Disraeli from his father. From him, too, he 
inherited his fondness for Burke, On the other hand, Disraeli's 
native leanings reacted against many of that peripatetic philo- 
sopher's opinions. His interpretation of the Bible was, if not 
at variance with, at any rate different from his father's,^ and 
was, I fancy, shared by his sister. His admiration for 
Bolingbroke, as genius and constitutional interpreter, was in 
direct opposition, just as that father's own dispassionate outlook 

^ His conviction, however, that our Lord came to fulfil, not to abolish, 
was directly derived from his father's " Genius of Judaism." 



DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 47 

remained independent and often the reverse of his own early 
associations. Byron, however, entered Disraeli's mental being 
through his father ; and of three main influences on his boy- 
hood — the Bible, Bolingbroke, and Byron (strange conjunc- 
tion ! ), the last was not the least. 

Outside politics, the contradictions combined in Disraeli's 
mind are patent throughout his fiction, and they were recon- 
ciled by his leading idea that everything great in the world 
springs from individuality alone. Thus, for example, as 
regards Destiny, he was both for free will and fatalism — the 
individual will was for him the universal fate. If a man, he 
has said, is ready to die for an object, he must attain it unless 
he has utterly miscalculated his powers. Then again, the 
twin sympathies of his mind, both with antique authority and 
modern revolution, its bias towards the Chartism of Sybil, the 
chivalry of her aristocratic deliverer, and the discipline of her 
time-honoured creed, towards the noble personality of " Theo- 
dora" in Lothair (his finest heroine),^ and the noble ideals 
of "Coningsby" — these are reconciled by the national idea, 
the idea that sets earned privilege and reciprocal duties above 
and against illimitable and irresponsible "rights." "Con- 
spiracies are for aristocrats, not for nations." 

In this regard it is most interesting to observe the influence 
of Shelley on Disraeli — a subject which has been treated by 
Dr. Richard Garnett in a masterly monograph.^ From many 
of his conclusions I dissent, but his facts are most enlighten- 
ing, and form an entrancing comment on the character of 
" Herbert " in Venetia. He shows that probably through 
Trelawny, whom he met often at Lady Blessington's, Disraeli 
gleaned many recollections and even thoughts and words, 
unpublished till the Shelley Papers were given to the world 
some years afterwards ; that his description too of the ethereal 
poet as " a golden phantom " is probably Trelawny's own ; 
that subtle shades of admiring appreciation are to be traced 

1 I am informed, through the kindness of my friend Mr. George 
Russell, that the original of "Theodora" was one Madame Mario, 
nee Jessie White. 

-" Shelley and Lord Beaconsfield." Blackwood, 1 88 1. For private 
circulation. Only twenty-five copies printed. 



48 DISRAELI 

throughout ; that Disraeli was undoubtedly influenced by 
Shelley's thoughts. The discovery of these in some por- 
tions of the Revolutionary Epick (where "Demogorgon" is 
introduced) does not seem to me conclusive ; nor are the 
verbal resemblances singled out for comparison very striking. 
I cannot close this branch of my subject without noticing a 
fact almost unknown. In 1825, when Disraeli was a stripling, 
he published an anonymous pamphlet, which may be found 
in the British MuseuTflT'on the restrictions enforced by the 
Government upon the British working of American mines. 
The tract is boldly dedicated " by a sincere admirer " 
to Canning,^ as "one who has reformed without bravery or 
scandal of former times or persons ; asking counsel of both 
times ; of the ancient times that which is best, of the modern 
times, that which is fittest ;" and it further contains this re- 
markable passage, if we remember its date, about America — 

"... The prosperity of England mainly depends upon 
its relations with America, and in proportion as the energies 
of America are developed and her resources strengthened, 
will the power and prosperity of England be confirmed and 
increased." 

In the domain of politics Disraeli, as I shall show at length, 
divined in the national institutions the chief engine for the 
revival of unity and for social regeneration. When he de- 
nounced the Conservatism of the early 'forties as an "organised 
hypocrisy," he did so just because, as it seemed to his eyes, the 
hopes once centred on Peel as the restorer of a truly "national" 
party were being shattered by his failure, under ordeal, to 
govern, to develop the institutions which he was called on 
to preserve, by his erection of " registration " into a party 
idol, by his policy of polls, by his cold indifference and sus- 
picion of the youthful regenerators, who confronted the middle 
classes with the middle ages. " Whenever," indignantly urged 
Disraeli in 1845, "whenever the young men of England allude 
to any great principle of political or parliamentary conduct, 
are they to be recommended to go to a railway com^mittee ? " 
And he found in his once chief's temperament of discouraging 
formality and timorous desire for " fixity of tenure," for staying 

1 Canning's ideas on variety of representation influenced Disraeli. 



DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 49 

power, a reason for the stultification of the House of Lords : 
"... It is not Radicalism ; it is not the revolutionary spirit of 
the nineteenth century which has consigned ' another place ' 
to illustrious insignificance ; it is * Conservatism ' and a Con- 
servative dictator." 

Disraeli was one born with aristocratic perceptions, yet 
with a bent " popular " rather than " democratic " in the strict 
sense of those terms. " Democracy " in the concrete he con- 
sidered as the unsettlement of compact nationality through 
the undue preponderance of a single class ; democracy in the 
abstract he considered as a lever for ambitious tribunes. But 
the welfare of the people was ever his chief concern, and he 
knew full well that it is constantly foiled by the side-aims of 
those vociferous on its behalf. When he first appeared on 
the political horizon, neither of the great historical parties 
owned popular sympathies. The Tories dreaded "Radicalism" 
because they were blind to the possibilities of its adoption 
into the order of the State. Of the Whigs, democratic en- 
thusiasms were at once the tools and the abhorrence. Disraeli 
determined to infuse them into those free yet settled institu- 
tions of which the Tories were the natural but forgetful 
guardians. His main purpose from the outset was to implant 
the new ideas of freedom on the ancient soil of order ; to 
engraft them productively without uprooting the native 
undergrowth ; to harmonise the modern democratic idea 
with those English traditions which had always harboured 
its older forms. His work was to accommodate federal to 
feudal principles ; to render democracy in England national 
and natural ; to popularise leadership ; to make democracy 
aristocratic in the truest sense of the term ; to undo the 
closed aristocracy of caste and to revive the open aristocracy 
of excellence wherever displayed. My next two chapters 
investigate this idea ; and it will be found afterwards, when 
I discuss his notion of empire and his attitude towards our 
colonies, that his ideals of Great Britain's destiny and re- 
sponsibility flow straight from this ruling outlook. The 
same consideration applies to the many other problems 
which I shall discuss in the light of Disraeli's relations to 
them. Throughout, in one form or another, and in many 

E 



50 DISRAELI 

applications, the free play of responsible individuality forms 
the keynote. He constantly opposes it alike to the barren 
uniformity of republican models, and to the centralising 
dictatorship whether of groups or of tyrants. He contrasts 
the personal with the mechanical. The State in his eyes 
should prove the sympathetic expression of the whole com- 
munity. These aspects will find ample exposition hereafter. 
In this place I wish only to quote their bold and broad 
emphasis in the unfamiliar pamphlet of W/iat is he? with 
one citation from which I opened this chapter. It will 
explain those passages in his Runnymede Letters and The 
Spirit of Whiggism, where he expects and adjures Peel to 
head a " national party " and to replace confederacies by 
a creed. It will also illustrate that passage in the election 
address to High Wycombe during 1832, which preludes his 
mission as the renewer of a popular Conservatism. "... 
Englishmen, behold the unparalleled empire raised by the 
heroic energies of your fathers, rouse yourselves in this hour 
of doubt and danger, rid yourselves of all that political jargon 
and factious slang of Whig and Tory, two names with one 
meaning, used only to delude you, and unite in forming a 
great national party. . . ." 

"The first object of a statesman," he says (and he was 
then barely twenty-nine years of age), " is a strong Govern- 
ment, without which there can be no security. Of all countries 
in the world, England most requires one, since the prosperity 
of no society so much depends upon public confidence as 
that of the British nation." 

He then declares that the old principle of exclusion 
(common alike to the Whig oligarchs and the debased 
Toryism of Eldon) is dead. 

"... The moment the Lords passed the Reform Bill 
from menace instead of conviction, the aristocratic principle 
of government in this country, in my opinion, expired for 
ever." The democratic principle becomes necessary to main- 
tain a Government at all. "If the Tories," he continues, 
" indeed despair of restoring the aristocratic principle, and 
are sincere in their avowal that the State cannot be governed 
with the present machinery, it is their duty to coalesce with 



DISRAELI'S PERSONALITY 51 

the Radicals/ and permit both political nicknames to merge 
into the common, the intelligible, and the] dignified title of a 
national party." ^ 

He proceeds to prove in a few decisive strokes that the 
towns are now the safeguards against any military invasion 
of rights, and that a coalition between the then Whigs and 
the then Tories is impossible ; the only alternative, there- 
fore, is the inclusion of the democratic principle. 

" Without being a system-monger," he resumes, repeating 
the refrain of his previous Revolutionary Epick, " I cannot 
but perceive that the history of Europe for three hundred 
years has been a transition from feudal to federal principles." 
If not their origin, these contending principles have blended 
with all the struggles that have occurred. — " The revolt of 
the Netherlands impelled, if it did not produce, our revolu- 
tion against Charles I. That of the Anglo-American colonies 
impelled, if it did not produce, the Revolution in France." 
" This," he says, " is not a party pamphlet, and appeals 
to the passions of no order of the State." " It is wise," he 
concludes, "to be sanguine in public as well as in private 
life ; yet the sagacious statesman must view the present por- 
tents with anxiety, if not with terror. It would sometimes 
appear that the loss of our colonial empire must be the 
necessary consequence of our prolonged domestic discussions. 
Hope, however, lingers to the last. In the sedate but vigorous 
character of the British nation we may place great confidence." 
The very pressing unsettlement of those days will afterwards 
claim a mention ; nor should I now omit Disraeli's sentence 
in his Crisis Examined, to the effect that " Lord Grey 
refusing the Privy Seal and Lord Brougham soliciting the 

1 It must be remembered that in 1833 the Radicals were a very small 
band, and differed vastly from their successors of the Manchester School. 
They were thoroughly discontented with the middle-class legislation of 
the Reform Bill, and they were violently opposed to the Whig pretensions 
to popular emancipation. Disraeli shared these feelings. 

^ It should be remembered that in the brilliant characterisation of 
Bolingbroke in Disraeli's Letter to Lord Lyndhursf, he says, "that 
despite the Whig affectation of popular sympathies, and the Tory 
admiration of arbitrary power, Bolingbroke penetrated appearances, and 
perceived that the choice really lay ' between oligarchy and democracy.' " 



52 DISRAELI 

Chief Barony" were "two epigrammatic episodes in the 
history of reform that never can be forgotten." 

Mr. John Morley has well observed that about all Disraeli's 
utterance there was something spacious. The ideas that I 
am about to examine are not to be brushed away by the 
sneers of triflers. Whatever may be thought of them, and 
however they may fairly be encountered by criticism, dis- 
sented from or condemned by judgment, they are still alive. 
Disraeli bathed the political landscape in a large and luminous 
atmosphere. To literature, as I shall hope to show, he lent 
a fresh and original charm. Over existence he never ceased 
to spread the glow of endeavour, of aspiration, and of purpose. 
His heart was with the youth and the labour of England. He 
made for the strength and union of every divergent class. He 
struck and stirred the national imagination. 

Disraeli's sincerity was that of a master in the world's 
studio, imbuing the fainter shapes around him with the vivid 
colours of the true pictures in his own brain. It was that, 
also, of a great man of action who translates dreams into deeds. 
It is not often that the literary mind is allied to a practical 
bent. He himself has reminded us that such an union — "as 
in the case of Caius Julius " — is irresistible. He was always 
himself, and never under " the dangerous sympathy with the 
creations of others." He believed that " every man performs 
his office, and there is a Power, greater than ourselves, that 
disposes of all this." ^ 

Disraeli's European prominence is evidenced through the 
space occupied by the polyglot literature relating to him in 
the book catalogue alone of the British Museum. It extends 
to eleven of those huge pages. His importance at home before 
he became pre-eminent is shown by a shower of virulent abuse. 

Science assures us that the difference between life and 
death is that the former holds the powers of growth and 
reproduction, while inanimateness is incapable of either. A 
great man is surely one who possesses and imparts these 
qualities of life. Disraeli, without question, powerfully 
affected the thought of his generation and the destinies of 
the future. 

^ A sentence from his appeal to Mr. Gladstone in 1859. 



CHAPTER II '"^ 

DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 

I WISH to head this chapter by a most striking passage 
hitherto unquoted. It occurs in the fourth of Disraeli's 
Letters to the Whigs, published in the first numbers 
of The Press — an organ founded by him in 1853 for the 
exposition of his views.^ It unites the brilliance of his youth 
to the ripeness of his prime. It is a wonderful forecast of 
the future, and it embodies his ideas at a time when the 
" Coalition " alliance of Peelites, Whigs, and Manchester 
Radicals — one of " suspended opinions " — was entering on the 
career which closed so disastrously. In 1833, the "aristo- 
cratic" principle had been crippled. The problem now was 
how to bring the new democracy into line with an old 
monarchy — 

"... I see before me a numerous and powerful party, 
animated by chiefs whose opinions in favour of all that can 
advance the cause of pure democracy have been openly pro- 
claimed. Amongst that party no doubt there are some more 
moderate than others, some who march blindfold towards the 
goal which those of bolder vision see clear through the mists 
of faction. But all unite in the march of the caravan towards 
the heart of the desert ; and if there be those who then discover 
that the fountain which allures them on is but the mirage, it 
will be too late to return, and it will be destruction to pause. 
... If England is to retain that empire which she owes to no 
natural resources, but to the various influences of a most com- 
plicated and artificial, but most admirable and effective social 

^ The Press, June 1 1, 1853. The whole series is full of great strokes ; 
and there is also a critique on the dividing periods of English history, 
which is most bold and original, 

53 



54 DISRAELI 

system, she must gather into one united phalanx all ivho hold the 
doctrine that England, to be s^afe, must he great. To continue 
free, she must rest upon the intermediate institutions that fence 
round monarchy, as the symbol of executive force, from that 
suffrage of unalloyed democracy which represents the invading 
agencies of legislative change. Our system of policy must 
be opposed to all those who by rules of arithmetic would 
reduce the empire on which the sun never sets to the isle of 
the Anglo-Saxon, and leave our shores without defence 
against a yet craftier Norman. Our measures of reform 
must be so framed as to gain all the purposes of good govern- 
ment, yet to admit under the name of reform no agency that 
lends by its own inevitable laws to the explosion of the 
machinery whose operations you pretend it will economise 
and quicken. 

" By what plausible arguments were the dwellers in the 
Piraeus admitted to vote in the Athenian assembly ? . . . 
Hence from that moment arose the dictator and the dema- 
gogue, . . . the flatterer and the tyrant of mobs ; hence, the 
rapid fluctuations, the greedy enterprises, the dominion of the 
have-nots, the ruin of the fleet, the loss of the colonies, the 
thirty tyrants, the vain restoration of a hollow freedom . . . 
licence — corruption — servitude — dissolution. Give the popular 
assembly of Great Britain up to the controlling influence of 
the lowest voters in large towns, and you have brought again a 
Piraeus to destroy your Athens." 

We shall see ere the close how he foiled the schemes for 
representing the refuse of opinion. 

A great statesman is a man inspired by great ideas ; and, 
since all history is the visible and particular development 
of unseen and universal ideas, it must happen that a great 
statesman versed in experience and intuition forecasts and 
foreknows. For the prophet is the inverted historian or philo- 
sopher : he descries the currents ahead which the other 
analyses in retrospect. " To be wise before the event," urged 
Disraeli more than once, " is statesmanship of the highest 
order." 

Throughout the preceding century two broad aspects of 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 55 

politics, that is to say of applied national energy, present 
themselves in England. They were and remain divergent, 
but they are and remain mutually instructive and indispensable. 

The one regards our kingdom as an elastic society, the 
outcome of native habits expressing national temperament ; 
as a soil of distinctive character and capacity, to which new- 
plants, if destined to flourish, must be acclimatised, but on 
to which, or against which, they must never be forced. 

The other — the " philosophic " school — regards the soil as 
a mere medium to be exhaustively manured by chemical pro- 
cesses for the introduction of growths of every origin, as a 
sort of "subtropical garden." It perceives an idea suitable 
to other communities or other conjunctures, and immediately 
hastens to transplant it. In like manner it perceives an 
institution suitable to the race and temper of England, but 
unsuitable to some alien race and temper. It is at once for 
forcible adoption. It prefers the rigid logic of abstract notions 
to the flexibilities of human nature. Its attitude is mechanical 
instead of being sympathetic. 

The one is in its essence national ; the other, if we reflect, 
international. The aim of the one is the evolution of 
individuality embodied in a nation ; that of the other, the 
ultimate effacement of nations, and their replacement by 
cosmopolitanism. 

These are the logical issues of each system. With the 
former Burke identified himself, when he recoiled from 
following his party into the anti-national abstractions of the 
French Revolution. With the latter Mr. Gladstone identified 
himself, when he broke loose from the national idea, and advo- 
cated the " right " of every small community to " govern " 
itself. The one depends on popular privileges and class 
responsibilities evenly distributed — the outcome of national 
treaty and compromise, the tact born of struggle, not of 
upheaval. The other hinges on inherent " rights," which are 
infinite, ubiquitous, abstract, and indefinite. 

Of the former, from first to last, Disraeli, like Canning 
before him, was a fearless exponent. " Change," he said in 
his famous Edinburgh speech of 1867, " is inevitable, but the 
point is whether that change shall be caused only in deference 



56 DISRAELI 

to the manners, the customs, the laws, the traditions of the 
people, or whether it shall be carried in deference to abstract 
principles and arbitrary and general doctrines. . . . The 
national system, although it may occasionally represent the 
prejudices of a nation, never injures the national character, 
while the philosophic system, though it may occasionally 
improve . . . the condition of the country, precipitates pro- 
gress, may occasion revolution and destroy states. . . ." His 
attitude to the repeal of the Corn Laws depended, as I shall 
prove in another chapter, on this dominant idea. It is in close 
connection with that idea of personality which I have already 
characterised, for nationality is itself the ideal personality 
which combines races in communion. It is also in close con- 
nection with that mode of government which seeks salvation 
from society and not from the State ; and it is bound up with 
all the characteristics that distinguish a " nation " from a 
"people." Disraeli's achievement was to adjust the spirit 
of England to the spirit of the age. 

Our two parties are, after all, only the strategical forces in 
the big campaign of ideas. Without great generals they con- 
stantly tend to forget the issues which nominally enlist them. 

At the period when Disraeli first stood on the hustings, 
" Reform " had been forced on the Whigs by the " Radicals," 
just as " Repeal " was to be forced some twelve years later on 
the Conservatives by the Cobdenites. To be a " Radical " com- 
mitted one to neither of the legitimate camps. The Whigs 
had entered on their kingdom after long years of hopeless 
exclusion. They were bent on engrossing office, and none 
detested the new-fangled doctrines more than Lord Grey. 
Disraeli's purpose from the very first was to widen and popu- 
larise Toryism, but never to maintain the exclusive system of 
the Whigs in power by the popular machinery to which they 
so often resorted. In a purged and quickened Conservatism 
lurked irresistible possibilities, true benefit to the nation, and 
empire at large, and a golden occasion for himself. 

I think that if the oil could have blent with the vinegar, if 
Peel could ever have coalesced with Lord John Russell, 
Disraeli would have had less chance in politics, and must 
have been thrown back on literature. 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 57 

His consistency stands out prominent in review. It is one 
of ideas. It is only by dint of long retrospect over a whole 
career that we can decide in the case of any statesman whether 
he has controlled his phases, or drifted with them. 

From the first Disraeli compassed his reconciliation of new 
ideas with ancient institutions on definite principles, at once 
national and constructive, as opposed to destructive and inter- 
national theories. He desired it through engraftment, not 
uprootal ; through the defence and development of a consti- 
tution which is, in fact, the British character expressed by 
the modulations of the national voice, and not by the shouts 
of mechanical majorities. He wished in every case to preserve 
its efficiency by strengthening its tone and enlarging its vents ; 
while, in the process, he displayed an insight into the instincts 
of classes which the conversance of genius with ideas can alone 
empower. Of modern, of cosmopolitan " Liberalism," he said, 
as late as 1872, that its drift and spirit were "to attack 
the institutions of the country under the name of reform, and 
to make war on the manners and customs of the people of 
this country under the pretext of progress." 

What then were the " new ideas " and the " old institu- 
tions " .? 

That form of government which is most national will be 
best, because the least liable to sudden and social revolutions ; 
and that form will be most national which is most genuinely 
representative ; while true representation is one of power dis- 
tributed, not centred. It follows that any Government that 
does not mirror the nation will break down. This was the 
real meaning of the French Revolution. 

"... 'You will observe one curious trait,' said Sidonia 
to Coningsby, ' in the history of this country — the depository 
of power is always unpopular. As we see that the Barons, the 
Church, and the King have in turn devoured each other, and 
that the Parliament, the last devourer, remains, it is impossible 
to resist the impression that this body also is doomed to be 
destroyed.' — * Where then would you look for hope ? ' — 
* In what is more powerful than laws and institutions, and 
without which the best laws and the most skilful institutions 
may be a dead letter and the very means of tyranny, in the 



58 DISRAELI 

national character. It is not in the increased feebleness of its 
institutions that I see the peril of England ; it is in the 
decline of its character as a community. . . . You may 
have a corrupt Government and a pure community ; you 
may have a corrupt community and a pure Administration. 
Which would you elect ? ' — ' Neither,' said Coningsby, 
' I wish to see a people full of faith, and a Government full 
of duty.' " 

Are the modern ideas of untempered democracy — 
Carlyle's " despair of finding any heroes to govern you "— 
compatible with real representation, as contrasted with the 
mechanism of elective systems or the shams of paper con- 
stitutions ? Can these ideas ever prove expressive of true 
nationality — the character of a united people — as opposed to 
the conflicting instincts of unreconciled races, or the factious 
claims of divergent groups ? Is not the mechanical subordi- 
nation to the " State " of Socialism hostile to an individual 
" nationality " ? How, in the ferment of modern progress, 
can the new wine be prevented from bursting the old bottles ? 
How can government and free action, independence and 
inter-dependence, be allied in living reality ? How can 
opinion be organised into allegiance to leadership ? How 
can traditions be rendered less formal ? How can discipline 
and development, authority and elasticity, combine ? How 
can the machinery of national custom be brought into real 
accord with popular aspirations, and the mainstay of cha- 
racter with the modern speed of movement ? " Certainly," 
as Carlyle insisted, " it is the hugest question ever heretofore 
propounded to mankind." 

In the proem to the Revolutionary Epick, Disraeli says 
that the French Revolution marks the greatest political crisis 
since the Siege of Troy. The paroxysm of that Revolution 
produced two hollow fictions, the " Rights of Man " and " the 
Sovereignty of the People," 

Before illustrating the train of Disraeli's ideas, let me 
touch on these two doctrines. 

The Rights of Man. What is the real meaning of a dogma 
which annihilates the duties of citizens in declaring the 
licence of their " rights ; " in affirming personal claims as 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 59 

distinguished from popular or legal privileges ; in destroying 
the community by exalting the person ? 

It was based on Rousseau's figment of a " Return to 
Nature." 

All " Returns to Nature " are, if we reflect, a harking back 
to chaos, a denial of the whole self-developing social state 
which God has ordained for man. They are the protests of 
instinct against order, of "the People" against "the Nation," 
of isolation against fusion, of " naturalism " against " spirit- 
ualism." One way or the other, they signify relapses into 
brute force and animal conflict. 

Rousseau's " Return " was a sentimental one, for senti- 
mentality often attends materialism. The best side of 
Rousseau was that he did undoubtedly leaven the irreverence 
of his generation with some feeling for God. But Rousseau 
invented a past on which he founded his hopefulness of 
sensibility — an inverted optimism. He cried aloud in 
hysterics, " Man is born free ; everywhere he is in chains." 
To what freedom was man born } The freedom of con- 
fusion. The order that he evolves is the parent of his true 
freedom — the freedom to work and serve, and to receive 
justice. The real " Rights of Man " are the rights to justice 
that order creates. And if that order belies its name, and 
injustice, disorder, masquerade as divine government, why 
then Fifth Monarchy men, French Revolutions, ruining 
cataclysm, witness to the heavenly destinies, and order is 
born once more. Rousseau's sobs resembled those of the 
hero of French melodrama, who under stage moonshine and 
stage misfortune, always ejaculates, " Ma mere ! " His mere 
emotion worked on nerves of sterner fibre and facts of harder 
quality. 

Since Disraeli's death, Nietzsche has propounded a 
physical " Return to Nature," which, however, excludes the 
humanitarian side of the French " Equality." He has sighed 
for a gigantic brood of antediluvian anarchs. He has tried 
to make anarchy heroic. But a monster is not even a man, 
still less a hero. 

All such systems must fail, because, as Disraeli has finely 
said, " Man is born to adore and to obey." They contradict 



6o DISRAELI 

the spiritual facts of our structure. For the true Right of 
Man is to lead wisely and be led loyally in public affairs ; 
neither to steal nor be stolen from in private. These are 
what Carlyle terms his " correctly articulated mights." 
Leadership, loyalty, and social honesty belong to no "state 
of nature " of which record or even guess is possible. And 
Disraeli agreed with Carlyle when the latter wrote, after the 
former had in effect said the same : " . . . ' Supply and 
demand ' we will honour also ; and yet how many ' demands ' 
are there, entirely indispensable, which have to go elsewhere 
than to the shops ! " 

But Nietzsche's theories are luckily untranslatable into 
action, and inconsistent with any form of the "state." 
Rousseau's theories, on the other hand, are the more dangerous 
because they are feasible. The " Rights of Man " is a doc- 
trine absolutely at issue with the " Rights of Nations." The 
abstract notion ^of universal " rights " is also at variance 
with the pressing impulses of physical " wants." Low wages 
and long hours are not redressed by the apparatus of ballot- 
boxes or the cant of independence. Physical needs due to 
economical causes, which can be modified only by the earnest 
statesmanship of leaders rising to their responsibilities, are 
not to be dismissed by the vague generalities of " moral 
force." This aspect is powerfully emphasised in Sybil. 

"... Add to all these causes of suffering and discontent 
among the workmen the apprehension of still greater evils, 
and the tyranny of the ' butties,' or middlemen, and it will 
with little difficulty be felt that the public mind of this dis- 
trict was well prepared for the excitement of the political 
agitator, especially if he were discreet enough rather to 
descant on their physical sufferings and personal injuries, 
than to attempt the propagation of abstract political principles 
with which it was impossible for them to sympathise. ... It 
generally happens, however, that where a mere physical 
impulse urges the people to insurrection, though it is often an 
influence of slow growth and movement, the effects are more 
violent and sometimes more obstinate than when they move 
under the blended authority of moral and physical necessity, 
and mix up together the rights and the wants of man." 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 6i 

The pendant to the " rights " is the " equality " of man. 
Here, again, nothing is more self-evident than man's natural 
inequahty. The whole development of societies, which we 
call civilisation, is for the very purpose of redressing or 
relieving these inequalities of occasion, of equipment. By 
nature man, like the brute, starts without equality and with- 
out rights. By his " mights " he has created these ideas, and 
acquired something of their substance by his superior facul- 
ties, by the spiritual energy which differentiates him. His 
" rights " spring from the " law " which he has propagated. 
The political equality which he has founded more than com- 
pensates him for the personal inequality of his beginnings. 
The "personal equation," indeed, would imply the reversal 
both of his nature and of his craftsmanship ; of all conditions, 
moreover, compatible with variety of character and freedom 
of action. It means, in fact, a denial of the existence of that 
natural aristocracy which we find in every class and every 
order, and which decides that everywhere the game of 
"follow my leader" must be played. What is wanted is a 
real aristocracy which " claims great privileges for great pur- 
poses." What is always dangerous is the monopoly of action 
by an aristocracy that shirks its duties, that plays at govern- 
ment, that is dilettante in leadership or sybarite in life ; or 
that, as in the three decades preceding the French Revolu- 
tion, revenges its exclusion from influence by multiplying 
sinecures. It is such a class, as contrasted with individuals — 
wherever found — of genuine capacities, that so often evoked 
Disraeli's irony, and has lately been satirised by Mr. Barrie 
in a whimsy accentuating the natural inequality of man. 
Speaking through the lips of " Egremont," in that fine passage 
where he cheers " Sybil " — the noble daughter of the people, 
disappointed by the Charter and the Chartists — with a vista 
of the future, Disraeli says : " The mind of England is the 
mind ever of the rising race. Trust me it is with the 
People. . . . Predominant opinions are generally the opinions 
of the generation that is vanishing. ... It will be a product 
hostile to the oligarchical system. The future principle of 
English politics will not be a levelling principle ; not a prin- 
ciple adverse to privileges, but favourable to their extension. 



62 DISRAELI 

It will seek to enstire equality, not by levelling thefezv, kit by 
elevating the many!' And again, the great manufacturer, 
" Millbank," in Coningsby, is made to remark (after giving dis- 
tinction as the basis of aristocracy), " that ' natural aristocracy ' 
ought to be found . . . among those men whom a nation 
recognises as the most eminent for virtue, talents, and pro- 
perty, and, if you please, birth and standing in the land. 
They guide opinion, and therefore they govern. I am no 
leveller. I look upon an artificial equality as equally per- 
nicious with a factitious aristocracy ; both depressing and 
checking the enterprise of a nation. I like man to be free — 
really free ; free in his industry as well as his body. . . ." As 
Carlyle puts it : " . . . I say you did not make the land of 
England ; and by the possession of it you are bound to furnish 
guidance and government to England. . . ." — "A high class 
without duties to do is like a tree planted on precipices." ^ 

It should not be forgotten, and I shall afterwards illus- 
trate, that in these and many other respects Carlyle's teach- 
ing chimes with Disraeli's. '* . . . That speciosities which 
are not realities can no longer be. . . . What is an aris- 
tocracy } A corporation of the best, of the bravest. . . . 
Whatsoever aristocracy does not even attempt to be that, 
but only to wear the clothes of that, is not safe ; neither 
is the land it rules in safe. . . . We must find a real aristo- 
cracy. ..." And so with priesthood. 

In " Angela Pisani " — a dazzling dream-picture of three 
generations in France — by Disraeli's early intimate. Lord 
Strangford, occurs a striking outburst against natural equality, 
that solecism in ideas, that remainder biscuit of the French 
Revolution. 

". . . Go and preach equality to the deep seas, . . . that 
the oyster is equal to the whale or the starfish to the shark ; 
you will succeed there sooner than you will be able to alter 
the relative grades of the five races of humanity. It is a law 
which man must unmake himself, ere he can change, that the 
Caucasian will aspire as the highest, and the negro will grovel 
as the basest." Disraeli's attitude was the same in Contarini 
Fleming : — 

1 Vide " Chartism," p. 35. 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 63 

"... The law that regulates man must be founded on a 
knowledge of his nature, or that law leads him to ruin. What 
is the nature of man ? In every clime and every creed we 
shall find a new definition. . . . What then ? Is the German 
a different animal from the Italian ? Let me inquire in turn 
whether you conceive the negro of the Gold Coast to be the 
same being as the Esquimaux who tracks his way over the 
Polar snows } The most successful legislators are those who 
have consulted the genius of the people. . . . One thing is 
quite certain, that the system we have pursued to attain a 
knowledge of man has entirely failed. ..." 

Although "Equality" ignores alike the instinct and the 
clue of " race," it asserts in practice the pandemonium of race- 
warfare ; because in imagining that man is born equipped, it 
ignores his great acquirement of " nationality," which blends 
the reconcilables of " race " into one ideal whole — a league 
of common traditions, language, habits, institutions, duties, 
and privileges — of "solidarity" — without the bond of blood 
or the necessity for bloodshed. Nationality thus brings the 
specific qualities of races into the common stock. Disraeli 
has often harped on the theme that a " nation " is no " aggre- 
gate of atoms," but a corporate individuality ; and indeed the 
force of individuality lies at the root of all his conceptions. 
But in truth the whole fiction of " natural equality " springs 
from a sort of native envy. As Goethe sings — 

" Men stick at reaching what is great, 
Yet only grudge an equal state. 
To deem your equals all you know — 
No envy worse the world can show." 

Crises, according to him in 1833, were determined by causes 
far other than these figments of " natural " laws — 

"... When I examine the state of European society with 
the unimpassioned spirit which the philosopher can alone 
command, I perceive that it is in a state of transition — one 
from feudal to federal principles. This I conceive to be the 
sole and secret cause of all the convulsions that have occurred 
and are to occur." ^ 

' Contarini Fleming. For a like passage of about the same date, of. 
ante, p. 48. 



64 DISRAELI 

All this has proved, and is proving true. The civil and 
legal " equality " of united nationality and of unifying empire 
is replacing the material " equality " of classes or of individuals. 

"Natural" equality means "physical" equality, which 
was the true gist of the many cries of the French Revolution. 
But its hurricane swept away classes and privilege alone ; 
the " equality " it created, that is to say, was social and civil. 
Of civil " equality " Disraeli was always the spokesman ; for 
in England, civil equality means abolition of monopolies. 
Privilege, as the ennobling boon of merit, stands open to all, 
and the limits of the political orders or social classes to which 
it is attached, are corrected by the wide freedom of public 
opinion and discussion. "I hold that civil equality," said 
Disraeli at Glasgow in 1873, "the equality of all subjects 
before the law, and a law which recognises the personal rights 
of all subjects, is the only foundation of a perfect common- 
wealth." His most striking utterances in The Press from 
1853 to 1859, s-'^d this Glasgow address, are perhaps his most 
notable commentaries on this theme. 

These are no mere subtleties. " Physical equality " has 
exercised a very practical bearing on the doctrines of the 
Manchester School and their relations to Sir Robert Peel's 
double reform, above all to those interests of Labour which 
both affected. I shall show this in my next chapter.^ Suffice 
it now to say that Disraeli descried that in adopting the 
" Right to physical happiness " doctrine of Manchester, at the 
very moment when he unshackled commerce and undid the 
Corn Laws, Peel had adopted a principle which logically 
demands an "unlimited employment of labour" — a thing 
inconsistent at once with his restriction of Labour by 
removing the restraints on competition, and, as Disraeli 
thought, with the very existence of states and of nations. 
Peel thus became unconsciously cosmopolitan, at the very 
juncture when he settled commerce and unsettled labour — 

"The leading principle of this new school," explained 

Disraeli, treating of "equality" in 1873, "is that there is no 

happiness which is not material, and that every living being 

has a right to share in that physical welfare. The first 

^ And zi.post at the opening of Chapter VI. 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 65 

obstacle to their purpose is found in the rights of private 
property. Therefore these must be abolished. But the social 
system must be established on some principle, and therefore 
for the rights of property they would substitttte the rights of 
Labour. Now these cannot fully be enjoyed, if there be any 
limit to employment. The great limit to employment, to the 
rights of Labour, and to the physical and material equality of 
man is found in the division of the world into states and nations. 
Thus, as civil equality would abolish privilege, social equality 
would destroy classes, so material and physical equality 
strikes at the principle of patriotism, and is prepared to 
abrogate countries." 

It was just this perception that enabled Disraeli nearly 
thirty years earlier to predict — as we shall see — so much 
that has come and is coming to pass. 

The third cry of the French Revolution was Human 
Brotherhood. The Christian ideal of inter-nationality, which, 
it is to be hoped, may ultimately be realised through the 
Brotherhood of Nations, is the Brotherhood of Man under 
the Fatherhood of God. But the fraternity of revolution 
eliminated both the Brotherhood of Nations and the Father- 
hood of God. The result was a murderous anarchy — a 
Brotherhood of Cain. 

Such disorders compelled their own cure in their own 
country. Although they flooded Europe with opinions at 
war with beliefs, and upheld a cosmopolitan model, they 
brought the French a deliverer who declined into a despot. 
Personality avenged herself And the eventual remedy for 
Napoleonism has in its turn been found in a Republic which, 
discarding the sovereignty of man, has also discarded the 
sovereignty of God. 

The effects of such a government are best perceived in two 
recent and remarkable books, M. Demolin's "A quoi tient la 
Superiorite des Anglo-Saxons," and M. Cerfberr's " Essai sur 
le Mouvement Social et Intellectuel en France depuis 1789." 
The perpetual preponderance of the bourgeoisie has raised a 
bureaucracy. The Charter of the Revolution has culminated 
in middle-class officialism. The over-centralisation of govern- 
ment by a few groups, who do not represent the varied 

F 



66 DISRAELI 

elements of a great nation, has caused a dearth of individual 
initiative, a lack of personal self-reliance and social free-play, 
a tendency towards the withering dictatorship of state- 
socialism, which underlies the unfitness of France for 
colonisation, and which both these acute thinkers depict and 
deplore ; while the late Professor Mommsen, commenting on 
Caesar's union of Democracy with Empire, employs the same 
arguments. 

That state which bests represents national character enjoys 
the freest play of institutions, favours the finest shape of 
spirit, public and private, will wield the most formative 
influence among nations, expand the most easily, and propagate 
itself by expansion. And the state which best embodies 
the national will, is where the legislature is in keenest touch 
with the executive, where institutions are organic, where 
representation is popular, and where centralisation is foreign 
to the national genius. This has, unfortunately, never been 
realised in France. She was centralised to an amazing degree 
long before her memorable outburst ; and De Tocqueville has 
well shown that her attempts to unite judicial with legislative 
functions were the surest signs of her lack of " solidarity." 
Her great upheaval was predicted by Bolingbroke more than 
forty years before it occurred, just because he discerned that 
her ancient constitution ignored a popular representation. 
De Tocqueville himself, too, only proves that the aristocratic 
centralisation of old France has been replaced by the collec- 
tivist centralisation of its new democracy. Both in spirit are 
the same. Centralisation, whatever its forms, precludes the 
fair and free distribution of activities. It hoards and absorbs 
the national character. These are its original sins. But 
Disraeli has also pointed out that, for many reasons, France 
remains the sole ancient country that can afford to begin again. 

So much for the " Rights of Man." One word still on 
" the Sovereignty of the People." 

"A people," said Disraeli, as early as 1836, in his Spirit 
of Whiggism, "is a species ; a civilised community is a nation. 
Now a nation is a work of art and a work of time. A nation 
is gradually created by a variety of influences. . . . These 
influences create the nation — these form the national mind. 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 67 

. . . If you destroy the political institutions which these 
influences have called into force, and which are the machinery 
by which they constantly act, you destroy the nation. The 
nation, in a state of anarchy and dissolution, then becomes a 
people ; and after experiencing all the consequent misery, 
like a company of bees spoiled of their queen and rifled of 
their hive, they set to again and establish themselves into a 
society. . . ." 

"The People" is a phrase of physiology, not of politics. It 
is an abstruse name for a multitude ; it ignores temperament 
and will. Stripped of its high sound, its " Sovereignty " means 
government by miscellany, the censorship of the census. Its 
political bearings are as purely arithmetical as are the cor- 
responding ethical bearings of the Utilitarian creed ; for they 
both disregard the many-sided nature of man. Although 
derived from the speculations of some late seventeenth- 
century republicans in England, the French application of the 
theory — Burke's " Wisdom told by the Head " — was entirely 
new. It was not republicanism, the government by qualified 
members of ordered classes : it was a despotism by the 
crowd as crowd. Such a " Democracy " has never been the 
permanent scheme of government in any nation, although 
"Liberal opinion" has relied too often on its simplicity. 
" One man, one vote," quantity instead of quality is in truth 
no principle at all ; and this attempt to confuse the Book of 
Wisdom with the Book of Numbers is a feat reserved for 
modern periods alone. All earlier systems of democracy were 
more or less discriminate, for no indiscriminate state can 
cohere, and both freedom and order are based on discrimina- 
tion. The Attic Democracy demanded a degraded class of 
unleisured, unemancipated slaves. The American Republic, 
which has freed serfs and abolished leisure, possesses a 
peculiar stability, which will outwear its occasional corruption 
because it exists through a landed democracy — one impossible 
in overcrowded Europe — as we shall find Disraeli emphasising 
in my American chapter. 

In a word, the logical outcome of the " Sovereignty of the 
People " is the tyranny of plebiscite. But a " plebiscite " 
dispenses with the very principle of representation, for where 



68 DISRAELI 

all decide equally, why should any be represented ? Political 
power exercisable by all can only arise when all are suffi- 
ciently qualified. But it is always the some, never the all, 
who are competent. Even in their proper sphere of merely 
personal choice, how false and fatal most plebiscites have 
proved ! — " Not this man, but Barabbas." 

Vox popidi is only vox Dei through the gradual in- 
stitutions that nations create; not through the wayward 
moods and momentary clamours of " the people." The whole 
problem is how at once to range and to raise public opinion 
— the popular conscience ; how to preserve moral, without 
retarding material, progress ; how to inspire " progress " itself 
with the conviction that it consists in following the highest 
leadership ; how, again, to ensure such leadership by the 
constant association of duty with privilege, and responsibility 
with power ; how to recruit it by every means that the spread 
of enlightenment can furnish. 

" On man alone the fate of man is placed," 
sang Disraeli, in the Revolutionary Epick ; and of " opinion " — 

" Physical strength and moral were united, 
And I, the pledge of their true love was born." 

But for this purpose the national imagination must be 
reckoned with. "... When that faculty is astir in a nation," 
he has insisted, "it will sacrifice even physical comfort to 
follow its impulses." The struggle will always continue for 
national unity, but it takes generations to perceive that 
colonial federation, for example, is as requisite a means to 
this idea as native institutions representing real elements. 
"... A political institution is a machine ; the motive power 
is the national character," says " Sidonia ; " " Society in this 
country is perplexed, almost paralysed. How are the elements 
of the nation to be again blended together ? In what spirit 
is that reorganisation to take place ? . . ." 

And again, so late as 1870, in the preface to Lothair, 
summarising his works, Disraeli observes : " . . . National 
institutions were the ramparts of the multitude against large 
estates exercising political power derived from a limited class. 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 69 

The Church was in theory — and once it had been in practice 
— the spiritual and intellectual trainer of the people. The 
privileges of the multitude and the prerogatives of the 
sovereign had grown up together, and together they had 
waned. Under the plea of Liberalism, all the institutions 
which were the bulwarks of the multitude had been sapped 
and weakened, and nothing had been substituted for them. 
The people were without education, and, relatively to the 
advance of science and the comfort of the superior classes, 
their condition had deteriorated, and their physical quality as 
a race was threatened. . . ." 

On the other hand, the incongruity of modern political 
machinery was never far from Disraeli's thoughts. "... 
Whatever may have been the faults of the ancient govern- 
ments," he muses in Contarini Fleming, " they were in closer 
relation to the times, the countries, and to the governed, than 
ours. The ancients invented their governments according to 
their wants. The moderns have adopted foreign policies, and 
then modelled their conduct upon this borrowed regulation. 
This circumstance has occasioned our manners and our 
customs to be so confused and absurd and unphilosophical. 
... He who profoundly meditates upon the situation of 
modern Europe, will also discover how productive of misery 
has been the senseless adoption of Oriental customs by 
Northern peoples. . . ." And Disraeli also distinguished be- 
tween the direct democracy of multitude and that of " popular " 
institutions. 

Nothing is less truly "popular" than "the people" as a 
"democracy," for the despotism of many is as odious as 
the arbitrary will of one, and even more fatal than the govern- 
ment by groups of the few. This is the distinction on which 
he expatiated in a famous speech of 1 847 at Aylesbury, where 
he contrasted "popular principles" with "Liberal opinions" — 

" As it is not the interest of the rich and the powerful to 
pursue popular principles of government, the wisdom of great 
men and the experience of ages have taken care that these 
principles should be cherished and perpetuated in the form of 
institutions. Thus the majesty that guards the multitude is 
embodied in a throne: the faith that consoles them hovers 



70 DISRAELI 

round the altar of a national Church ; the spirit of discussion, 
which is the root of public liberty, flourishes in the atmosphere 
of a free Parliament." 

These, in the rough, are some of Disraeli's ideas as to the 
new democracy. From the first, as we shall see, he compassed 
the renewal of the English democratic idea — that of demo- 
cracy as an element — in opposition alike to the State tutelage 
of the French, and to that form of democracy which means 
the undue power of one class in the nation. His Reform Bill 
of 1867 was the accomplishment of his earliest hopes, and the 
realisation of principles distinct from the spasms of doctrinaire 
" Liberalism." 

He regarded our Constitution — the quintessence of the 
English character immanent in English institutions — as a real 
though limited monarchy, tempered by a democracy which is 
in effect neither more nor less than a natural aristocracy. 

"Aristocracy," as a universal principle and not the 
badge of a particular class, is the committal of political 
privilege far more to representative influence than to power- 
ful interests. A "natural" aristocracy must comprehend and 
absorb the superiors of every class in all their varieties. 

" The Monarchy of the Tories," Disraeli exclaimed in his 
youth,^ "is more democratic than the Republic of the 
Whigs." " The House of Commons," he exclaimed many 
years later, " is a more aristocratic body than the House of 
Lords." In each House, through all its pronouncements, he 
recognised that the democratic element is aristocratic, the 
aristocratic element democratic. That the representative 
assembly of the Commons, which is elected, should include all 
that is best from each class which by its qualities has earned 
the boon of the franchise ; that the representative assembly, 
which is not elected, should include more and more not only 
those whose aggrandisement stands for the interests of 
property, but those too whose intellect and attainments 
entitle them to distinction. Nor, of course, can the fact be 
ignored that through hereditary honours the Estate of the 
Commons, which constantly reinforces the Estate of the 
Peers, is, in its turn, as constantly refreshed from the Estate of 
* The Spirit of Whiggism. 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 71 

the Peers. And from first to last, in theory, as well as in 
action, he upheld the land as the deepest foundation of 
England's greatness of character, I could quote passage 
after passage, both from books and speeches, and regarding 
subjects the most various, in which he presses home the 
substantial importance of a territorial constitution, and the 
fact that the landed interest is in truth not only a safeguard 
for freedom in peace and vigour in war, but also an industrial 
interest of the highest order ; and doubly so, because by 
sentiment, by tradition, by its contribution to local govern- 
ment, to stability, to the social scale of duties conditioning 
the tenure of property, to physique, its influence is essential 
and exceptional. I shall content myself with a citation from 
a speech of i860, and it may be remembered that the acute 
De Tocqueville singles out the self-seclusion of the official 
bourgeoisie from the land as a chief contributory to the French 
Revolution — 

"... I look round upon Europe at the present moment, 
and I see no country of any importance in which political 
liberty can be said to exist. I attribute the creation and 
maintenance of our liberties to the influence of the land, and 
to our tenure of land. In England there are large properties 
round which men can rally, and that in my mind forms tJie 
only security in an old Eitropean country against that centra- 
lised form of government zvhich has prevailed, and must 
prevail, in every European country where there is no such 
cotmterpoise. It is our tenure of land to which we are in- 
debted for our public liberties, because it is the tenure of 
land which makes local government a fact in England, and 
which allows the great body of Englishmen to be ruled by 
traditionary influence and by habit, instead of being 
governed, as in other countries, by mere police." 

Disraeli was always staunch to the land. After the Corn 
Law repeal, he strove pertinaciously till he succeeded in 
removing those especial burdens which unfairly hampered 
their free competition, and which were originally the price 
of peculiar privileges then removed. But though he always 
desired a preponderance of the various landed interests, he 
never wished for their predominance. And to the last he 



72 DISRAELI 

refused to allow any spurious cry for especial measures on 
their behalf to be raised when a temporary depression due to 
the seasons arose, which he always distinguished from perma- 
nent causes connected with social revolutions.^ 

To develop our ancient institutions was his lifelong 
specific. From his earliest pronouncements, those in the 
Letter to Lord Lyndhirst, those in What is he f and in 
Gallomania, those in the Spirit of Whiggism, those in his 
first election speeches, extending over a period of five years 
before he was returned, in his three first political novels, to 
his latest orations on Conservatism as a "national " cause, he 
laid the greatest stress on the function and origin of the 
three co-ordinate Estates of the Realm — "popular classes 
established into political orders " ^ — which under monarchy 
form our Constitution. And, while to the end he praised that 
mighty force of public opinion which has in the person of the 
Press almost divested Parliament of its ancestral office as "the 
grand inquest " of national grievances, he still held the "organi- 
sation of opinion " to remain the essence of the party system ; 
while he increasingly desired the presence in Parliament of 
elements at once various and choice,^ and the absence from its 
councils of any preponderant sects or sections. Like Burke, 
he believed that Parliament should be under every changing 
phase of national development " the express image of the 
feelings of the nation ; " like Bolingbroke, he deemed that it 
should be also the collective assemblage of its wisdom. He 
regarded these " estates " as the embodiment of great na- 
tional interests organised on the principle of distinct duties 

* Cf. his fine speech on "Agricultural Distress," April 29, 1879. He 
urged the same, almost in the same words, on February 17, 1863. 

- Letter to Lord Lyndhurst. So, too, in his early Spirit of Whiggism. 
In a speech of 1865 he defines an Estate as "a political body invested 
with political power for the government of the country and for the public 
good," and " therefore a body founded upon privilege and not upon 
rigJit^'' and " in the noblest and properest sense of the term an aristocratic 
body." Under the Plantagenets it was at one time mooted whether the 
Law should not be raised into such an " Estate." He says the same in a 
letter of explanation to Lord Malmesbury. 

' " Our constituent body should be mmieroustnow^ to be independent, 
and select enough to be responsible." In 1865 he distinguished between 
the constitution, absorbing the best from each class, and a " democracy " — , 
" the tyranny of one class." 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 73 

conditioning privilege ; and he desired that, however modified, 
they should never be altered so as to impair the great national 
institutions as whose buttresses they were built to serve. 

Looking back historically, he discerned that some hundred 
and twenty years before the birth of English Liberalism, a 
country 'and " Old England " party, perplexed by dynastic 
and economic problems, confronted too by the semi-scientific 
rationalism of a new age, had been first schooled into com- 
prehensive, generous, and " national " aspirations by a great 
but lost leader, and had then been baffled by a set of great 
families. Most of these began by professing Republican 
principles, and all of them were branded in the literature of 
Queen Anne as the "Venetian oligarchy." These families 
aimed steadily for more than a century at engrossing the 
whole power of the State. Their bias from 1700 to Sunder- 
land's peerage bill in 171 8, and from 17 18 to the Reform Bill 
of 1 83 1 remained Republican. But so long as a king was 
content to be a puppet dancing on their wires, and the nation 
to be cowed into lethargy, they could dispense with theoretical 
forms, mainly upheld as a ladder towards oligarchical power. 
From time to time they assumed popular causes, but some- 
how they never succeeded in themselves being popular, 
because their chief object as a party organisation was " the 
establishment of an oligarchical government by virtue of a 
Republican cry ; " ^ because, as Disraeli has again shown, 
English revolutions have always been in favour of privilege 
traditionally distributed, while foreign revolutions have been 
against all privilege whatever ; because the " New Whigs "of 
Queen Anne and the first two Georges sought a tabtda 
rasa — a plain map, as opposed to the picture with perspective 
of English institutions. They were theoretically for " liberty 
and property " — the " New Whig " catchword of Queen Anne's 
reign that replaced the old one of " Liberty " alone, in which 
both Whigs and Tories joined at the revolution — but their 
bias was always more for property than for liberty. They 
sought to amass money and power through the amassing 
classes. They never studied the varied interests of the 
whole nation. Walpole usurped their place, but retained 
^ Runnymede Letters. 



74 DISRAELI 

their influence, and by his virtue George I. reigned rather 
than ruled over the towns instead of over the country. At 
first these oligarchs kicked against the growing management 
of a sole minister, but the shrewd steadiness of a superior 
will overmastered them, and Newcastle remained on Wal- 
pole's side — the insignificant representative of their tamed 
confederacy. Trade ceased to follow the land, but tended 
more and more to acquire it by purchase, until a fresh 
moneyed oligarchy, which acquired fresh titles, was formed. 
The great Chatham broke it for a time ; and afterwards 
George III. obstinately mutinied against its shackles. The 
French overthrow transformed the Whig cry of Republi- 
canism to the Whig cry of Jacobinism. "... Between the 
advent of Mr. Pitt and the resurrection of Lord Grey, . . . 
ever on the watch for a cry to carry them into power, they 
mistook the yell of Jacobinism for the chorus of an emanci- 
pated people, and fancied, in order to take the throne by 
storm, that nothing was wanting but to hoist the tricolour 
and to cover their haughty brows with a red cap. This fatal 
blunder clipped the wings of Whiggism ; nor is it possible to 
conceive a party that had effected so many revolutions and 
governed a great country for so long a period more broken, 
sunk, and shattered, more desolate and disheartened, than 
these same Whigs at the Peace of Paris." But all proved 
fruitless, until at last the vast body of the nation — the real 
" people " — reasserted themselves, and, by emphasising 
Parliamentary reform, compelled oligarchs, mistrustful of 
them at heart,^ to "do something." What they "did" was 
to aggrandise the middle classes, on whom they had always 
relied ; and a new revolution was the consequence. Throughout 
more than a century and a half, despite noble and national 
intervals, they constantly betrayed themselves as a " faction 
who headed a revolution with which they did not sympathise, 
in order to possess themselves of a power which they cannot 
wield." In 171 8 they "sought to govern the country by 
swamping the House of Commons." In 1836 they were for 

» In 1733 Walpole objected to the repeal of the Septennial Act 
precisely on the grounds that it would involve over-confidence in the 
people, and democratise England. 



DEMOCRACY AND KEPRESENTATION 75 

''swamping " the House of Lords. Their drift was continued 
against the national institutions, the conjoined independence 
and inter-dependence of which thwarted their inveteracy. 
Their plan in the end became avowedly cosmopolitan ; and 
when that occurred it became doubly dangerous, for to " cen- 
tralisation " — monopoly of power — was added the no-principle 
of " laissez-faire',' the abandonment of leadership to chaos. 

The great national struggle against Napoleon practically 
obliterated party distinctions in England, although there was 
still a remnant of those who are, in Burke's words : " . . . the 
most pernicious of all factions, one in the interest and under 
the direction of foreign powers." A lull ensued. Both Toryism 
and Whiggism withered ; the first from sheer inanition of 
those popular principles which Canning in vain sought to re- 
kindle ; the second from the sheer impossibility of withstand- 
ing the name of Wellington and the memories of Waterloo. 
Toryism turned against freedom and Liberalism against order. 
Public spirit waned with the decay of party opposition. The 
great warriors dwindled into petty place-men until 

" Where are the Grenvilles ? Turned as usual. Where 
My friends the Whigs ? Exactly where they were ; " 

until the "Marney" of Sybil expired "in the full faith of 
dukeism and babbling of strawberry leaves." 

"From that period till 1830," to resume my citations from 
his earliest pamphlets, " the tactics of the Whigs consisted in 
gently and gradually extricating themselves from their false 
position as the disciples of Jacobinism, and assuming their 
ancient post as the hereditary guardians of an hereditary 
monarchy." To ease the transition, they invented Liberalism, 
a bridge to regain the lost mainland, and recross on tiptoe 
the chasm over which they had sprung with so much precipi- 
tation. " A dozen years of * Liberal principles ' broke up the 
national party of England — cemented by half a century of 
prosperity and glory, compared with which all the annals of 
the realm are dim and lack-lustre. Yet so weak intrinsically 
was the oligarchical faction, that their chief, despairing to 
obtain a monopoly of power for his party, elaborately 
announced himself as the champion of his patrician order, and 
attempted to coalesce with the Liberalised leader of the Tories. 



76 DISRAELI 

Had that negotiation not led to the result which was originally 
intended by those interested, the Riots of Paris would not 
have occasioned the Reform of London. It is a great 
delusion to believe that revolutions are ever effected by a 
nation. It is a faction, and generally a small one, that over- 
throws a dynasty or remodels a constitution. A small party, 
strong by long exile from power, and desperate of success 
except by desperate means, invariably has recourse to a coup 
cT^tat. , . . The rights and liberties of a nation can only be 
preserved by institutions. . . . Life is short, man is imagina- 
tive, our passions high. . . . Let us suppose our ancient 
monarchy abolished, our independent hierarchy reduced to 
a stipendiary sect, the gentlemen of England deprived of their 
magisterial functions, and metropolitan prefects and sub- 
prefects established in the counties and principal towns com- 
manding a vigorous and vigilant police, and backed by an 
army under the immediate order of a single House of 
Parliament. . . . But where then will be the liberties of 
England ? Who will dare disobey London ? . . . When these 
merry times arrive — the times of extraordinary tribunals and 
extraordinary taxes . . . the phrase 'Anti-Reformer' will 
serve as well as that of ' Malignant,' and be as valid a plea 
as the former title for harassing and plundering those who 
venture to wince under the crowning mercies of centralisa- 
tion. ... I would address myself to the English Radicals. 
I do not mean those fine gentlemen or those vulgar adven- 
turers who, in this age of quackery, may sail into Parliament 
by hoisting for the nonce the false colours of the movement ; 
but I mean that honest and considerable party . . . who 
have a definite object which they distinctly avow. . . . Not 
merely that which is just, but that which is also practicable, 
should be the aim of a sagacious politician. Let the Radicals 
well consider whether in attempting to achieve their avowed 
object they are not, in fact, only assisting t/ie secret views of 
a party whose scheme is infinitely more adverse to their own than 
the existing 'system, whose genius I believe they entirely mis- 
app7'ehend." And after commenting on the " preponderance of 
a small class" under the new arrangement, the dangerous 
tendency towards centralisation and the perils of the reformed 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION ^^ 

municipal corporations, he thus concludes : " If there be a 
slight probability of ever establishing in this country a more 
democratic government than the English Constitution, it will 
be as well, I conceive, for those who love their rights, to 
maintain that constitution, and if the more recent measures 
of the Whigs, however plausible their first aspect, have in fact 
been a departtLve from the democratic cJiaracter of that con- 
stitution, it will be as well for the English nation to 
oppose . . . the spirit of Whiggism." 

No student of the Croker Papers can deny that some of 
the leading Whigs did in the period immediately succeed- 
ing the Reform Bill plot for a Republican purpose. No 
historian will deny that the Reform Bill, by the exclusion of 
" Labour " from the franchise, and its deprival at the same 
time of the ancient rights which industry had possessed, left 
open a rankling sore. In this tract of 1836 Disraeli ex- 
poses the machination and probes the wound. Even thus 
early he feared the predominance of a plutocracy, "the 
supreme triumph of cash " at an era when, in Carlyle's phrase 
also, " Cash Payment " is fast becoming " the universal sole 
nexus of man to man;" while he determined, if ever he had 
the power, to redress the balance by including the labouring 
classes. In 1848 he had spoken in Parliament on these 
questions to the same effect as he had spoken on the hustings 
in 1833, even favouring, as he had then advocated, triennial 
parliaments, except that under the later circumstances it 
might be an unnecessary change ; and denouncing, as he had 
then denounced, " universal suffrage," and on the same grounds. 
In this remarkable speech he forecasted that signal settlement 
which nearly twenty years later he was to secure. I shall 
shortly connect many utterances of his, ranging over more 
than thirty years ; but there are three passages from this 
declaration, made at a time before the re-modelling of the 
reforms of 1832 had been agreed upon as an open problem, 
which I ask leave to excerpt as a prelude, for they strike the very 
keynotes of his domestic policy. Disraeli pointed out that 
the Radical Hume was idkmg property as the basis of suffrage 
fully as much as the Whigs had done in 1832, and that the 
same bourgeois predominance would ensue. 



78 DISRAELI 

"... Now, sir, for one I think property is sufficiently re- 
presented in this House. I am prepared to support the system 
of 1832 until I see that the circumstances and necessities of 
the country require a change ; but I am convinced that when 
that change comes, it ivill be one that will have more regard 
for other sentiments, qiialities, and conditions than the mere 
possession of property as a qualification for the exercise of the 
political franchiser And he then definitely protested against 
being ranked among those who accepted finality in that 
"wherein there has been, throughout the history of this 
ancient country, frequent and continuous change — the con- 
struction of this estate of the realm. I oppose this new 
scheme because it does not appear to be adapted in any way 
to satisfy the wants of the age, or to be conceived in the 
spirit of the times." He opposed it also because this Radical 
motion, like the great Whig measure, really implied the undue 
ascendancy of the middle classes — 

". . . The House will not forget what that class has done in 
its legislative enterprises. I do not use the term ' middle class ' 
with any disrespect ; no one more than myself estimates what 
the urban population has done for the liberty and civilisation 
of mankind ; but I speak of the middle class as of one which 
avowedly aims at predominance, and therefore it is expedient 
to ascertain how far the fact justifies a confidence in their 
political capacity. It was only at the end of the last century 
that the middle class rose into any considerable influence, 
chiefly through Mr. Pitt,^ that minister whom they are always 
abusing." He proceeds to praise their abolition of the slave 
trade: "... A noble and sublime act, but carried with an 
entire ignorance of the subject, as the event has proved. How 
far it has aggravated the horrors of slavery, I stop not now 
to inquire. . . . The middle class emancipated the negroes, 
but they never proposed a Ten Hour Bill. . . . The interests 
of the working classes of England were not much considered in 
that arrangement. Having tried their hand at Colonial reform, 

^ ". . . He (Pitt) created a plebeian aristocracy and blended it with the 
patrician oligarchy. He made peers of second-rate squires and fat 
graziers. He caught them in the alleys of Lombard Street, and clutched 
them from the counting-houses of Cornhill. . . ." — Sybil. 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 79 

. . . they next turned their hands to Parliamentary reform, 
and carried the Reform Bill. But observe, in that operation 
they destroyed, under the pretence of its corrupt exercise, the 
old industrial franchise, and they never constructed a new one. 
... So that whether we look to their Colonial, or their 
Parliamentary reform, they entirely neglected the industrial 
classes. Having failed in Colonial as well as Parliamentary 
reform, . . . they next tried Commercial reform, and in- 
troduced free imports under the specious name of free trade. 
How were the interests of the working classes considered in this 
third movement ? More than they were in their Colonial or 
their Parliamentary reform ? On the contrary, while the 
interests of capital were unblushingly advocated, the dis- 
placed labour of the country was offered neither consolation 
nor compensation, but was told that it must submit to be 
absorbed in the mass. In their Colonial, Parliamentary, and 
Commercial reforms there is no evidence of any sympathy 
with the working classes ; and every one of the measures so 
forced upon the country has at the same time proved dis- 
astrous. Their Colonial reform ruined the colonies, and in- 
creased slavery. Their Parliamentary reform, according to 
their own account, was a delusion which has filled the people 
with disappointment and disgust. If their Commercial reform 
have not proved ruinous, then the picture . . . presented to 
us of the condition of England every day for the last four or 
five months must be a gross misrepresentation. In this state 
of affairs, as a remedy for half a century of failure, we are 
under their auspices to take refuge in financial reform,^ which 
I predict will prove their fourth failure, and one in which the 
interests of the working classes will be as little considered and 
accomplished^ 

The third passage concerns the symptoms of a need and 
the moment for change. Leaders, he argues, should educate 
and prepare the people, and not allow mere agitators to 
manufacture grievances, but rather prick the educated and 

^ The motion was designed to throw the burden of taxation on land. 
Disraeli showed that land was no monopoly, while it remained a security 
for good government ; and that the rental of property in Great Britain, if 
equally divided among its proprietors, would only amount to ;^ 170 as an 
average annual income per head. 



8o DISRAELI 

well-born to remember the duties by virtue of which alone 
they hold their position. 

"... A new profession has been discovered which will 
supply the place of obsolete ones. It is a profession which 
requires many votaries. 

" * Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes, 
Augur, schoenobates, medicus, magus.' 

The business of this profession is to discover or invent 
great questions. But the remarkable circumstance is this — 
that the present movement has not in the slightest degree 
originated in any class of the people. . . . The moral I draw 
from all this — from observing this system of organised agita- 
tion — this playing and paltering with popular passions for the 
aggrandisement of one too ambitions class — the moral I draw is 
this : why are the people of England forced to find leaders 
among these persons ? The proper leaders of the people are 
the gentlemen of England. If they are not the leaders of the 
people, I do not see why there should be gentlemen. Yes, it 
is because the gentlemen of England have been negligent of 
their duties, and unmindful of their station, that the system 
of professional agitation, so ruinous to the best interests of 
the country, has arisen in England. It was not always so. 
My honourable friends around me call themselves the country 
party. Why, that was the name once in England of a party 
who were the foremost to vindicate popular rights — who were 
the natural leaders of the people, and the champions of every- 
thing national and popular. . . . When Sir William Wyndham 
was the leader of the country party, do you think he would 
have allowed any chairman or deputy-chairman, any lecturer 
or pamphleteer, to deprive him of his hold on the heart of the 
people of this country ? No, never ! Do you think that when 
the question of suffrage was brought before the House, he 
would have allowed any class who had boldly avowed their 
determination to obtain predominance to take up and settle 
that question ? . . ." 

Nor let him be misconstrued in his views of the ancestral 
temperament of the Whigs. Nothing is more remarkable in 
the chronicle of combinations than the fact that for more than 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 8i 

a century a party, the most exclusive in its operation, was 
considered the least. The recent publications of the Portland 
and Harley Papers establish beyond a doubt that while the 
" New Whigs " of Queen Anne were in large measure a 
commercial syndicate that " made a corner " in power, the old 
Whigs of George III. were an aristocratic obligarchy that 
subverted rule, both popular and personal, and monopolised 
government. 

" How an oligarchy," says Disraeli, in the preface to 
Lothair, " had been substituted for a kingdom, and a narrow- 
minded and bigoted fanaticism flourished in the name of 
religious liberty, were problems long to me insoluble, but which 
early interested me. But what most attracted my musing, even 
as a boy, was the elements of our political parties, and the 
strange mystification by which that which was national in its 
constitution had become odious, and that which was exclusive 
was presented as popular. What has mainly led to this con- 
fusion of public thought, and this uneasiness of society, is our 
habitual carelessiiess in not distinguishing between the excellence 
of a principle and its inpirious or obsolete application. The 
feudal system may have worn out, but its main principle, that 
the tenure of property should be the fulfilment of duty, is the 
essence of good government. The divine right of kings may 
have been a plea for feeble tyrants, but the divine right of 
government is the keystone of human progress, and without 
it government sinks into police and a nation is degraded into 
a mob." And he continues with reference to the Toryism of 
a later period : " . . . Those who in theory were the national 
party, and who sheltered themselves under the institutions of 
the country against the oligarchy, had, both by a misconcep- 
tion and a neglect of their duties, become, and justly become, 
odious ; while the oligarchy . . . had, by the patronage of 
certain general principles which they only meagrely applied, 
assumed, and to a certain degree acquired, the character of a 
popular party. But no party was national ; one was exclusive 
and odious, and the other liberal and cosmopolitan^ 

His history — I speak as a student of the reigns of Queen 
Anne and the Georges — will bear scrutiny. Indeed, he 
carries the descent of Whiggism some steps further, and traces 

G 



82 DISRAELI 

its pedigree back to the Roundhead Independents,^ and even 
the favourites of Henry VIIL, enriched by the spoil of the 
plundered abbeys. But he never denied, or wished to gain- 
say, the special and signal qualities of the Whigs' conspicuous 
service. They had reconciled religious liberty to the con- 
secration of the State, and had constantly proved themselves a 
" national " party ^ — that solecism in words but truth in ideas. 
This he repeatedly acknowledges. Neither did he ever spare 
the soulless, cramped, hollow, and shrivelled Toryism of the 
period preceding Bolingbroke's and Wyndham's struggle to re- 
call it to its origins ; or again of the period after Pitt's generous 
concessions were overwhelmed by the Jacobin deluge, and 
neutralised by the impersonalities of Addington and Perceval ; 
by the Phariseeism of Liverpool's puzzle-headedness ; by the 
pigheadedness of Eldon and Wetherell. Nor did he ever 
deny that pseudo-Toryism had often nursed the very vices 
of the Whig oligarchy.^ What he did contend, from first to 
last, was that any party which by its elements makes for 
national growth and union, and favours the free play of custom 
in institutions, is " national ; " while any party encouraging class 
warfare, class preponderance, and cosmopolitan theories repug- 
nant to the genius of those institutions, will be " anti-national ; " 
that the democratic possibilities of our constitution must be 
spread, as opportunities arise to enlarge the "estate of the 
Commons ; " yet that this must never mean the enthronement 
of either Oligarchy or Democracy in place of our mixed govern- 
ment ; further, that in all such expansion influence is more 

1 ". . . But thanks to parliamentary patriotism, the people of England 
were saved from Ship-money, which money the wealthy paid, and only 
got in its stead the customs and the excise, which the poor mainly 
supply. . . •" — Sybil. 

2 " . . . Burke effected for the Whigs what Bolingbroke in a preceding 
age had done for the Tories : he restored the moral existence of the 
party. He taught them to recur to the ancient principles of their 
connection. . . . He raised the tone of their public discourse ; he 
breathed a high spirit into their public acts. . . ." — Ibid. 

3 "... In my time " (said Mr. Ormsby) "... a proper majority was 
a third of the House. That was Lord Liverpool's majority. Lord 
Monmouth used to say that there were ten families in this country who, 
if they could only agree, could always share the government. Ah ! those 
were the good old times ! . . ." 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 83 

important than interest ; that theorlsers must never blind us 
to the distinction between the " Rights of Man " and the duties 
of English citizens, between private and public equality, 
between the " Sovereignty of the People " and a national 
government ; that over-government is a fatal evil, but that 
individual leadership is a priceless privilege. 

The Reform Act raised the whole question of Represen- 
tation. Is its aim monotony or variety ? If it is neces- 
sarily elective, must it not logically end in becoming a 
plebiscite ? Will a vote open to all be prized by any .? And 
is suffrage any panacea for suffering } 

Before the Reform Bill of 1832, Disraeli wrote, musing on 
Athens, and contrasting the strong simplicity of Greek litera- 
ture with the imitative splendour of Rome, "... A mighty 
era, prepared by the blunders of long centuries, is at hand. 
Ardently I hope that the necessary change in human exist- 
ence may be effected by the voice of philosophy alone ; but 
I tremble and am silent. There is no bigotry so terrible as 
the bigotry of a country that flatters itself that it is philoso- 
phical." In introducing the great Act of 1867, he observed: 
". . . The political rights of the working classes which 
existed before the Act of 1832, and which not only existed, 
but were acknowledged, were on that occasion disregarded 
and even abolished, and during the whole period that has 
since elapsed in consequence of the great vigour that has 
been given to the Government of this country, and of the 
multiplicity of subjects commanding interest that have en- 
gaged and engrossed attention, no great inconvenience has 
been experienced from that cause. Still, during all that time 
there has been a feeling, sometimes a very painful feeling, 
that questions have arisen which have been treated in this 
House without that entire national sympathy which is 
desirable." 

The Reform Bill and its sequels transferred the immemorial 
franchise of toilers to the middle classes, who were to be 
further aggrandised by the repeal of the Corn Laws.-^ They 

^ That this object was of direct design is proved by a correspondence 
of Cobden with Sir Robert Peel. 



84 DISRAELI 

raised the revolutionary bitterness of Toil in England and 
Religion in Ireland, both of which they provoked to physical 
force. The Act proved rather a measure for the House of 
Commons than for the Commons themselves. It was the 
makeshift and stop-gap of oligarchy in distress. Its immediate 
effects were to wipe out that parliamentary opposition on 
which the health of party government depends,^ to encroach on 
the independent influence of the House of Lords, to end, it is 
true unintentionally, the " Venetian Constitution " of those who 
enfeebled their cause in 1837 by resolving to continue as 
oligarchs when the weapon of oligarchy had vanished ; while 
none the less it left the monarch a doge, and the multitude 
a cipher ; a crown still " robbed of its prerogatives, a Church 
controlled by a commission, and an aristocracy that does not 
lead." Such were the joint results of the two large and once 
great parties that had lost principles in their search after 
organisation, the one by thwarting, the other by tricking the 
popular voice. It sharpened the warfare between rich and 
poor, afterwards aggravated by the acceptance of the principle 
of unrestricted competition ; it precipitated a plutocracy, it 
helped to set class against class, and it became a prop of that 
calculating materialism which exalted " utility." On the other 
hand, its indirect benefits were many. " It set men a-think- 
ing " (I quote from Sybil) ; " it enlarged the horizon of political 
experience ; it led the public mind to ponder somewhat on the 
circumstances of our national history ; to pry into the begin- 
nings of some social anomalies which, they found, were not 
so ancient as they had been led to believe, and which had 
their origin in causes very different from what they had been 
educated to credit ; and insensibly it created and prepared a 
popular intelligence to which one can appeal, no longer hope- 
lessly, in an attempt to dispel the mysteries with which for 
nearly three centuries it has been the labour of party writers 
to involve a national history, and without the dispersion of 

Mn a speech of 1864, Disraeli said :'',.. For my own part, believ- 
ing that parliamentary government is practically impossible without two 
organised parties, that without them it would be the most contemptible 
and corrupt system which could be devised, I always regret anything that 
may damage the just influence of either of the great parties in the 
State." 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 85 

which no political position can be understood and no social 
evil remedied." This latter was an especial province of 
Disraeli. Carlyle also, as a social regenerator appealing to 
higher sanctions than the " useful," was able to address the 
newly awakened " popular intelligence." 

Here again Disraeli is in curious accord with Carlyle, the 
difference between them being that Disraeli, a doer as well 
as a seer, discerned in the traditional " orders " or " estates " 
of the realm real curatives of a sick body politic. Both pro- 
tested against a state based on statistics and a progress that 
was arithmetical. Both were quick to discriminate, under the 
surface of parties, between the influences which made for 
cementing and those which made for dissolving the nation. 
Both saw in the conservatism and liberalism of the 'thirties, 
on the one side a pretence of protecting the forms they en- 
feebled, on the other a pretext and a sop for the universal 
suffrage which their professions logically implied. Disraeli 
perceived that such a French democracy was alien to England, 
and meant eventually some sort of unenlightened despotism, 
and the aggravation of a government by favouritism and 
through interference. He therefore resolved to reinspire the 
three " estates " — and if possible the Crown — with reality ; 
and thus, in extending franchise, to extend it as the privilege 
of an order, earned by thrift, education, and intelligence, 
while he sought to found it on a basis so stable that leadership 
might never sink into being the sport of a fluid and fickle 
ignorance. Like Carlyle, he rejoiced that "opinion is now 
supreme, and opinion speaks in print ; the representation of 
the Press is far more complete than the representation of Parlia- 
ment ; " he hailed the spread of knowledge among the mass 
so early as in the Revolutionary Epick. But, unlike Carlyle, 
he did not deem this increasing power fatal to parliamentary 
institutions ; indeed, he regarded Parliament as a body privi- 
leged to lead and leaven "opinion," and one that should 
never abandon its proper functions of initiative. Both Parlia- 
ment and the Press in his eyes were vents for that free 
discussion inseparable from political health, but the one 
ought to form a school for statesmen, the other an arena for 
critics. And Disraeli also held and enforced that parties 



86 DISRAELI 

should never be particularist, but should rest on some national 
principle instead of on incoherent prejudices. Parties should 
represent broad attitudes towards working institutions. Only 
thus can they escape debasement into sets on the one hand, 
and shams on the other. If parties are split up into intriguing 
factions, they are solvents ; if they become merely the masks 
of disregarded principles, they grow lifeless and hypocritical. 
They are at once " humbug and humdrum." 

In his fine speech of February, 1850, on Agricultural 
Distress (a distress greatly due to the unrestricted competi- 
tion of English land with foreign acres,^ and only to be met 
by what he then proposed and long afterwards carried — the 
relief of its peculiar burdens), Disraeli dwelt on the sad fact 
that the labourers of the land made no appeal to Parliament. 
" Why, what is that," he urged, " but a want of confidence in 
the institutions of the country ? " Cobden, who definitely and 
avowedly sought the predominance of one portion alone, 
of middle-class individual interest, gave an ironical cheer. 
Carlyle had already published his philippic against Parliament. 
But Disraeli — and with justice — continued — 

"... The honourable gentleman cheers as if I sanctioned 
such doctrines : I have never sanctioned the expression of 
such feelings ; I never used language elsewhere which I have 
not been ready to repeat in this House. I never said one thing 
in one place, and another in another. I have confidence in 
the justice and wisdom of the House of Commons, although 
I sit with the minority ; I have expressed that confidence in 
other places. ... I have expressed the conviction that I 
earnestly entertain, that this House, instead of being an 
assembly with a deaf ear and a callous heart to the sufferings 
of the agricultural body, would, on the contrary, be found to 
be an assembly prompt to express sympathy, prompt to 
repair, if it might be, even the injury, necessary in the main 
as they might think it, which they had entailed on the 

1 The great depression of 1847-51 was not wholly caused by the 
fiscal change. It was largely due to reaction after the railway mania, as 
Disraeli pointed out in a speech of 1879. It was followed by a rise in 
wages, due, not to Free Trade, but to the large imports of newly discovered 
gold ; and by an increased purchasing power which zuas due to Peel's 
large abatements of the tariff. 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 87 

agricultural classes of the country. ... I have that confidence 
in the good sense of the English people that . . . they will 
deem we are only doing our duty, we are only consulting their 
interests in taking every opportunity to alleviate their burdens, 
in trying to devise remedies for their burdens ; and, if we 
cannot accomplish immediately any great financial result, at 
least achieving this great political purpose — that we may teach 
them not to despair of the institutions of their country." 

This purpose he had sought to accomplish two years 
before, when, in 1848, he proved by a speech which, it is said, 
won him the eventual leadership of his party, that the break- 
down which Carlyle was at that time preparing to denounce, 
was due to an incapable ministry, and not to an effete Parlia- 
ment. He always held Parliament to be neither a municipal 
vestry nor a chamber of commerce, but a national temple of 
embodied opinion ; nor can the wisdom of his view in those 
dark and despondent times be better tested than by com- 
paring, in the light of what has since occurred, than by con- 
trasting Carlyle's fulminations in this regard with Disraeli's 
discernment. 

"... There is a phenomenon," says Carlyle, in his 
"Chartism," "which one might call Paralytic Radicalism in 
these days, which gauges with statistic measuring-reed, 
sounds with Philosophic Politico-Economic plummet, the 
deep, dark sea of trouble, and, having taught us rightly what 
an infinite sea of trouble it is, sums up with the practical 
inference and use of consolation. That nothing whatever in it 
can be done by man, who has simply to sit still and look 
wistfully to 'Time and General Laws;' and thereupon, 
without so much as recommending suicide, coldly takes its 
leave of us. . . ." 

Disraeli, on the other hand — 

". . . 'In this country,' said 'Sidonia,' 'since the peace, 
there has been an attempt to advocate a reconstruction of 
society on a purely rational basis. The principle of Utility 
has been powerfully developed. I speak not with lightness 
of the labours of the disciples of that school. I bow to 
intellect in every form; and we should be grateful to any 
school of philosophers, even if we disagree with them. . . . 



88 DISRAELI 

There has been an attempt to reconstruct society on a basis 
of material motives and calculations. It has failed. It must 
ultimately have failed under any circumstances ; its failure in 
an ancient and densely peopled kingdom was inevitable. 
How limited is human reason, the profoundest inquirers are 
most conscious. We are not indebted to the reason of man 
for any of the great achievements which are the landmarks of 
human action and human progress. It was not Reason that 
besieged Troy ; it was not Reason that sent forth the Saracen 
from the desert to conquer the world, that inspired the 
crusades, that instituted the monastic order ; it was not 
Reason that produced the Jesuits ; above all, it was not 
Reason that created the French Revolution. . . ." 

I may compare with this the light episode of the travelling 
Utilitarian in the much earlier Young Duke — 

" . . . 'I think it is not very difficult to demonstrate the 
use of an aristocracy,' ^ mildly observed the Duke. 

" * Pooh ! nonsense, sir ! I know what you are going to 
say, but we have got beyond all that. Have you read this, 
sir ? This article on the aristocracy in The Screw and Lever 
Revieiv ? ' 

" ' I have not, sir.' 

*' * Then I advise you to make yourself master of it, and 
you will talk no more of the aristocracy. A few more 
articles like this, and a few more noblemen like the man who 
has got this park, and people will open their eyes at last.' 

" ' I should think,' said his Grace, ' that the follies of the 
man who has got this park have been productive of evil only 
to himself. In fact, sir, according to your own system, a 
prodigal nobleman seems to be a very desirable member of 
the commonwealth, and a complete leveller.' 

" ' We shall get rid of them all soon, sir, . . .' 

" ' I have heard that he is very young, sir,' remarked the 
widow. 

1 It should be borne in mind that DisraeH sometimes employs the 
words " aristocracy " and " democracy " to mean the order of aristocrats 
and democrats, sometimes to mean the systems of exclusion and inclusion, 
sometimes to mean the government by the best and by the miscellaneous, 
and oftener as indicating elements in our Constitution. 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 89 

*"Ah, youth is a very trying time! Let us hope the 
best. He may turn out well yet, poor soul ! ' 

" ' I hope not. Don't talk to me of poor souls. There is 
a poor soul,' said the Utilitarian, pointing to an old man 
breaking stones on the highway. ' That is what I call a poor 
soul, not a young prodigal. . . .' " 

No one who has followed the labour movement in Eng- 
land, or the social-democrat organisations in Germany and 
France, can fail to recognise the immense part that per- 
sonality, imagination, and desire of power plays in them, and 
how completely, in their instance, utilitarianism has broken 
down. Utilitarianism, of course, ignores the moral and 
imaginative aspects. It mistakes the moon for a cream- 
cheese. It ignores personal influence. Above all, it con- 
founds happiness with prosperity. " Charcoal," exclaims 
Ruskin (here in complete accord with Disraeli), "may be 
cheap among your roof-timbers after a fire, and bricks may 
be cheap in your streets after an earthquake ; but fire and 
earthquake may not therefore be national benefits." Even in 
a concern purely commercial, reserve must be weighed 
against dividends. 

Again, as regards this very Reform Bill of 1832, and the 
stagnant formulae of its pioneer, I will again invoke Carlyle — 

"... An ultra-radical, not seemingly of the Benthamee 
species, is forced to exclaim, * The people are at last wearied ! 
They say, "Why should we be ruined in our shops, thrown out 
of our farms, voting for these men ? " Ministerial majorities 
decline ; this Ministry has become impotent, had it even the 
will to do good. They have long called to us, " We are a 
Reform Ministry ; will ye not support us ? " We have 
supported them, borne them forward indignantly on our 
shoulders time after time, fall after fall, when they had been 
hurled out into the street, and lay prostrate, helpless, like 
dead luggage. It is the fact of a Reform Ministry, not the 
name of one, that we would support. . . . The public mind 
says at last. Why all this struggle for the ?iame of a Reform 
Ministry ? Let the Tories be a ministry, if they will ; let, at 
least, some living reality be a ministry !'..." 

Let me illustrate Carlyle by two further passages from 



90 DISRAELI 

Disraeli. The first concerns parties in 1837, the second 
concerns the withered and withering Toryism left to confront 
the hollow conventions of the Reform Ministry. He is arguing 
that "the man who enters public life at this epoch has to 
choose between political infidelity and a destructive creed." 

"... The principle of the exclusive constitution of England 
having been conceded by the Acts of 1827-28-32, ... a 
party has arisen in the State who demand that the principle 
of political liberalism shall consequently be carried to its 
extent, which it appears to them is impossible without getting 
rid of the fragments of the old constitution that remain. 
This is the destructive party — a party with distinct and 
intelligible principles. They seek a specific for the evils of 
our social system in the general suffrage of the population. 
They are resisted by another party who, having given up 
exclusion, would only embrace as much liberalism as is 
necessary for the moment ; who, without any embarrassing 
promulgation of principles, wish to keep things as they find 
them as well as they can ; but, as a party must have the 
semblance of principles, they take the names of the things 
that they have destroyed. Thus they are devoted to the 
prerogatives of the Crown, although in truth the Crown has 
been stripped of every one of its prerogatives ; they affect a 
great veneration for the constitution in Church and State, 
although every one knows that it no longer exists ; they are 
ready to stand or fall with the independence of the Upper 
House of Parliament, although in practice they are perfectly 
well aware that, with their sanction, the ' Upper House ' has 
abdicated its initiatory functions, and now serves only as a 
court of review of the legislation of the House of Commons. 
Whenever public opinion, which this party never attempts to 
form, to educate, or to lead, falls into some violent perplexity, 
passion, or caprice, this party yields without a struggle to the 
impulse, and, when the storm has passed, attempts to obstruct 
and obviate the logical, and ultimately the inevitable results 
of the very measures they have themselves originated, or to 
which they have consented. This is the Conservative party. 
I care not whether men are called Whigs or Tories, Radicals 
or Chartists, . . . but these two divisions comprehend at 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 91 

present the English nation. . . . With regard to the first 
school, I for one have no faith in the remedial qualities of a 
Government carried on by a neglected democracy, who for 
three centuries have received no education. What prospect 
does it offer us of those high principles of conduct with which 
we have fed our imagination and strengthened our will .-' I 
perceive none of the elements of government that should 
secure the happiness of a people and the greatness of a realm. 
. . . Many men in this country . . . are reconciled to the 
contemplation of democracy, because they have accustomed 
themselves to believe that it is the only power by which we 
can sweep away those sectional privileges and interests that 
impede the intelligence and indtistry of tJte community, . . . and 
yet the only way ... to terminate what, in the language of 
the present day, is called class legislation, is not to entrust 
power to classes. You would find a ' locofoco ' ^ majority as 
much addicted to class legislation as a factitious aristocracy. 
... In a word, true ivisdom lies in a policy that wotild effect 
its ends by the influence of opinion, and yet by the means of 
existing forms y 

And the other — 

" Mr. Rigby began by ascribing everything to the Reform 
Bill, and then referred to several of his own speeches on 
Schedule A. Then he told Coningsby that want of ' religious 
faith was solely occasioned by want of churches, and want of 
loyalty by George IV. having shut up himself too much at 
the cottage in Windsor Park, entirely against the advice of 
Mr. Rigby. He assured Coningsby that the Church Com- 
mission was operating wonders. . . . The great question now 
was their architecture. Had George IV. lived, all would have 
been right. They would have been built on the model of the 
Buddhist pagoda. As for loyalty, if the present king went 
regularly to Ascot races, he had no doubt all would go right. 
Finally, Mr. Rigby impressed on Coningsby to read the 
Quarterly Review with great attention, and to make him- 
self master of Mr. Wordy's " History of the Late War," in 

^ This phrase is American, and refers to the democrat extremists, 
conduct in Tammany Hall in 1834. The same year had seen the 
invention of the " self-lighting " cigar. 



92 DISRAELI 

twenty volumes — a capital work which proves that Providence 
was on the side of the Tories.' . . ." 

As regards the principles and conduct of the Reform • 
Ministers themselves, years before he entered Parliament, in 
that brilliant series of speeches on the hustings of High 
Wycombe and Taunton, which preluded so many of his ideas, 
he denounced the incompleteness of the measure and the in- 
adequacy of the men. In 1832 he said — 

"... If, instead of filling the humble position of a private 
individual, I held a post near the person of my King, I should 
have said to my sovereign, ' Oppose all change, or allow that 
change which will be full, satisfactory, and final' In the 
change produced by the professing party now in power, there 
are omissions of immense importance. These points they 
promised ; these points they have not given you ; and now, 
after all their protestations, they turn round and ask how the 
people can have the audacity to demand them." ^ 

In 1834 he denounced "the Whig system of centralisa- 
tion," and their organised attempt to " overpower " the House 
of Lords and to despotise the House of Commons, while of 
their subsequent disorganisation from within, because of the 
failure of concerted opposition from without, he gave that 
surpassing simile of Ducrow's Circus. In 1835 he pursued 
the subject of constitutional opposition, and he expressed his 
dread, as he did in 1881, that if the Whigs remained "our 
masters for life, the dismemberment of the Empire " might 
follow. And all this in the teeth of what was then considered 
a system installed for fifty years, and which would have 

^ At that time, under the full spell of the analogy which the age of 
Walpole presented, he believed that triennial parliaments and the 
ballot might redress the balance of constitutional power and foil the 
ohgarchs who had baffled the people by espousing a popular cry. In 
1852, however, he said, with regard to those proposals brought forward by 
Mr. Hume : "... He did not object to them, but he saw no necessity to 
adopt them. His objections to the latter were distinctly founded on the 
limits of the franchise which the settlement of 1832 had not sufficiently 
extended, but ... if they had universal suffrage they came to a new 
constitution — a constitution commonly called the ' Sovereignty of the 
People,' but that is not the Constitution of England ; for, wisely modified 
as that monarchy may be, the Constitution of England is the sovereignty 
of Queen Victoria." 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 93 

promised him a personal triumph had he appeared then to 
have chosen to have endorsed it. 

But the views he always retained as to the first principles 
of representation are best heard in a passage from Coningsby. 

"... In the protracted discussions to which this celebrated 
measure gave rise, nothing is more remarkable than the per- 
plexities into which the speakers on both sides are thrown 
when they touch upon the nature of the representative prin- 
ciple. On the one hand, it was maintained that under the 
old system the people were virtually represented, while, on 
the other, it was triumphantly urged that, if the principle 
was conceded, the people should not be virtually, but actually 
represented. But who are the people } And where are you 
to draw a line ? And why should there be any "i It was 
urged that a contribution to the taxes was the constitutional 
qualification for the suffrage." Here is repeated what he had 
urged in the 'thirties, and was to reiterate in the 'fifties, that 
indirect taxation is as much taxation as direct ; that " the 
beggar who chews his quid as he sweeps a crossing is con- 
tributing to the imposts ; ... he is one of the people, and he 
yields his quota to the public burthens." The logical inference 
of such a qualification must be to convert the suffrage from 
being a privilege into being a right. Manhood suffrage, in 
common with all privilege unearned, is usually prized by none, 
and even disregarded by most. 

" Amid these conflicting statements," he continues, " it is 
singular that no member of either House should have 
recurred to the original character of these popular assemblies 
which have always prevailed among the northern nations. . . . 
When the crowned northman consulted on the welfare of his 
kingdom, he assembled the estates of his realm. Now, an 
estate is a class of the nation invested with political rights. 
Then appeared the estate of the clergy, of the barons, of 
other classes. In the Scandinavian kingdoms to this day 
the estate of the peasants sends its representatives to the Diet. 
In England, under the Normans, the Church and the Baronage 
were convoked together with the estate of the Community, 
a term which then probably described the inferior holders 
of land whose tenure was not immediate of the Crown. 



94 DISRAELI 

The Third Estate was so numerous that convenience sug- 
gested its appearance by representation, while the others, 
more limited, appeared, and still appear, personally. The 
Third Estate was reconstructed as circumstances developed 
themselves. It was a reform of Parliament when the towns 
were summoned. In treating the House of the Third Estate 
as the House of the People, and not as the House of a 
privileged class, the Ministry and Parliament of 183 1 
virtually conceded the principle of universal suffrage. In 
this point of view, the ten-pound franchise was an arbitrary, 
irrational, impolitic qualification. It had indeed the merit of 
simplicity, and so had the constitution of Abb^ Si^yes. But 
its immediate and inevitable result was Chartism. 

" But if the Ministry and Parliament of 183 1 had announced 
that the time had arrived when the Third Estate should be 
enlarged and reconstructed, they would have occupied an 
intelligible position ; and if, instead of simplicity of elements 
in its reconstruction, they had sought, on the contrary, vary- 
ing and various materials which would have neutralised the 
painful predominance of any particular interest in the new 
scheme, and prevented those banded jealousies which have 
been its consequence, the nation would have found itself in a 
secure position. Another class, not less numerous than the 
existing one, and invested with privileges not less important, 
would have been added to the public estates of the realm, and 
the bewildering phrase, 'the People,' would have remained 
what it really is, a term of natural philosophy, and not of 
political science." 

The quality, then, of excellence, instead of the majorities 
of multitude, the variety of every approved influence, and not 
the undue weight of any overwhelming interest — these formed 
for him the true bases of representation. He was ever for 
levelling up instead of down ; and, as we shall see, he was 
directly opposed to Mr. Hume's fallacy (still rampant) that 
by our traditions representation depends only on taxation. 

These ideas animated him throughout, and he achieved 
them in 1867, not, though it has been insinuated, by filch- 
ing the proposals of his predecessors, but oii the opposed 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 95 

principles which he continued to advocate from the 'thirties 
to the 'sixties. In 1835, two years before he entered Parlia- 
ment, he expressed the same convictions in his Spirit of 
Whiggism. He showed that the two Houses were the 
** House of the Nation," not the " House of the People," but 
that both alike represent the " Nation." He proceeded to 
prove by powerful illustration that, under whatever assumed 
form, political power will follow the distribution of property. 
He emphasised the "passion for industry" as an instrument 
of wealth as an English characteristic hostile to any future 
revolution in the distribution of property. He proved that in 
England revolution is ever a struggle for privilege, in Europe 
one against it ; and he concluded, therefore, that "... If a 
new class rises in the State, it becomes uneasy to take its 
place in the natural aristocracy of the land. . . . The Whigs in 
the present day have risen on the power of the maniifactttring 
interest. To sectire themselves in their posts, the Whigs have 
given the new interest an tmdue preponderance. But the new 
interest has obtained its object and is content. . . . The 
manufacturer begins to lack in movement. Under Walpole the 
Whigs played the same game with the commercial interest. 
A century has passed, and the commercial interests are all as 
devoted to the Constitution as the manufacturers soon will 
be. . . . The consequence of our wealth is an aristocratic 
constitution, founded on an equality of civil rights. And 
who can deny that an aristocratic constitution resting on 
such a basis, where the legislative and even the executive 
office may be obtained by every subject of the realm, is in 
fact a noble democracy ? " 

These are no dry theories, but surely a true version of 
growing facts. Our Constitution is that of a natural 
aristocracy founded on popular privilege depending on the 
mutual exercise of duties. This free aristocracy distributes 
its power through the estates of the realm, and these orders 
should accord with the institutions to which they have given 
rise ; for, as Disraeli said in 1852, they are "popular" without 
being absolutely " democratic." When any one of them 
degenerates into undue monopoly, the whole body must 
suffer ; and should such a catastrophe attain any permanence, 



96 DISRAELI 

one of the great institutions through which English nationality 
thrives would be shattered by the very order to which it cor- 
responds. What Disraeli observes of the eventual reduction 
of each new ascendant interest to aristocratic influence, is 
beyond question. But that influence must rest on the due 
performance of civil and social responsibilities which empower 
it. Stripped of historical verbiage, the " constitution " harmo- 
nises classes through special privileges and reciprocal duties. 
Of the " middle-middles " he always spoke with respect, of the 
" lower-middles " with much sympathy, not least as victims 
of the income-tax ; ^ but he ever doubted their governing 
capacity as a class ; and when Sir Robert Peel's " monarchy 
of the middle classes " came into swing, Disraeli feared the 
plutocracy which has happened, and which, when financial, is 
more easily freed from political responsibility. The choice 
offered between wealth omnipotent and mob-despotism, is a 
choice between Scylla and Charybdis. To obviate it, Disraeli 
created in 1867 an artisan franchise, accorded as a boon at 
length earned by character and intelligence, and based on the 
rating principle, which affords a pledge of permanence ; at the 
same time, he strove to countervail the growing irresponsibility 
of wealth by relieving unprotected land of its burdens and 
unrepresented labour of its degradation. By the first, he 
strove to retain that sap of the soil which underlies the 
English character, the English health, the English order, 
through local government, the English freedom, and the 
English steadiness ; for (and this was said in 1852), ".. . 
Laws which, by imposing unequal taxes, discourage that 
investment {i.e. capital invested in land, the return for which 
is rent) are, irrespective of their injustice, highly impolitic ; 
for nothing contributes more to the enduring prosperity of a 
country than the natural deposit of its surplus capital in the 
improvement of its soil. ..." By the last, he tried to redress 
that social misery which the measures of 1846 had not re- 
moved and had even increased : the overcrowding of the towns, 
the displacement of labour, the subsidising of foreign agriculture 

* Cf. speech, May 18, 187 1. The Whigs, who in 1843 called it "a fungus 
of monopoly," worked and upheld it afterwards as " Liberals." Now that 
a democracy and an Empire are being "run" at the same time, its 
permanence, for many years questioned, seems assured. 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 97 

to the decultivation of English land, the enthronement of 
Mammon and materialism — all denounced and foreseen by 
him with wonderful prescience. Very soon after the repeal 
of the Corn Laws, discerning, as Disraeli did, its drift of 
denationalising tendencies, its certainty of some social and 
physical demoralisation, as well as the possible changes in 
European competition which might necessitate another 
** commercial and social revolution," he inveighed against the 
inference that " we are to be rescued from the alleged power 
of one class, only to fall under the avowed dominion of 
another ; " he believed that " the monarchy of England, its 
sovereign power mitigated by the acknowledged authority of 
the estates of the realm, has its root in the hearts of the 
people, and is capable of securing the happiness of the nation 
and the power of the State." His peroration — some of which 
I shall give in the next chapter — is a noble flight of hope. 
He discerned at once that the transformation scene of 1846 
would affect society more than politics, and that the next 
extension of the franchise must consequently prove a social 
antidote as well as a social sedative. 

In 1839, refuting Mr. Hume's hobby already alluded to, 
he showed that the theory is nowhere inherent in our Constitu- 
tion, but is a doctrinaire supplement of alien origin ; that the 
" Commons " are a political order invested with power for the 
performance of duties, just as the Peers are a similar order, 
but needing no representation ; he re-urged that the House of 
Commons was the representative of the " nation " — an organic 
whole, and not of the " people" — a vague abstraction. He had 
even then already pointed out that, historically, the delegates 
before the Restoration had perverted the national traditions by 
announcing, more than a century before the French Revolution, 
the sovereignty of the " people." He once more stoutly denied 
that " taxation and representation went hand-in-hand " accord- 
ing to our constitution. There was representation without 
election, as in the case of the Church in the Lords, for the Crown 
appointed the bishops, not the clergy. And as regards taxation, 
it was indirect, as well as, unfortunately, direct. In the same 
year, protesting against Lord John Russell's assumption of a 
"monarchy of the middle classes," Disraeli repeated that in 



98 DISRAELI 

this country " the exercise of political power must be associated 
with great public duties," just as in 1846, when justifying the 
burdens on land so long as protection was accorded it, he 
asserted that great honours demand great burdens. Again, in 
1848, Disraeli, opposing Mr. Hume once more, and protesting 
against the finality of the reconstruction of 1832, even before 
Lord John Russell declared the question free for both parties 
in 1853 and 1856 — strongly condemned the radical scheme 
just because it did not "... enable the labouring classes to 
take their place in the Constitution of the country." " If there 
be any mistake," he said, " more striking than another in the 
settlement of 1832, ... it is, in my opinion, that the bill of 
1832 took the qualification oi property in too hard and rigid 
a sense, as the only qualification which should exist in this 
country for the exercise of political rights." In 1852, he again 
dinned into unappreciative ears the necessity for a genuinely 
industrial franchise, though he was not satisfied that Lord John 
Russell's £,^ franchise would so operate. In 1859 and 1867, 
Disraeli tried hard to confer franchises on education and 
thrift, but Mr. Bright sneered at them as "fancy franchises," 
Mr. Gladstone scoffed at them, and in forwarding the great 
measure of labour suffrage by the compelled co-operation of 
both sides of the House, Disraeli had to surrender safeguards 
he never ceased to desire and to regret, for they are founded 
on the State recognition of individual excellence, instead of 
on the State manipulation of mere party mechanism. 

" Is the possession of the franchise," demanded Disraeli in 
185 1, "to be a privilege, the privilege of industry and public 
virtue, or is it to be a right — the right of every one, however 
degraded, however indolent, however unworthy ? . . . I am 
for the system which maintains in this country a large and 
free Government, having confidence in the energies and faculties 
of man. Therefore I say, make the franchise a privilege, but 
let it be the privilege of tJie civic virtues. Honourable gentle- 
men opposite would degrade the franchise to the man, instead 
of raising the man to the franchise. If you want to have a free 
aristocratic country, free because aristocratic (I use the word 
' aristocratic ' in its noblest sense — I mean that aristocratic free- 
dom which enables every man to achieve the best position in the 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 99 

State to which his qualities entitle him), I know not what we can 
do better than adhere to the mitigated monarchy of England, 
with power in the Croivn, order in one estate of the realm, and 
liberty in the other. It is from that happy combination that 
we have produced a state of society that all other nations look 
upon with admiration and envy." 

In all these considerations, the social results of measures 
and formulae were ever uppermost in his mind. What he had 
ever been resolute to secure was, as he avowed even in 1850, 
"the industrial franchise," which the resettlement of 1832 
had thrown to the winds. 

Again, in 1865, "... It appears to me," urged Disraeli, 
" that the primary plan of our ancient constitution, so rich in 
various wisdom, indicates the course that we ought to pursue 
in this matter. It secured our popular rights by entrusting 
power, not to an indiscriminate multitude, but to the estate, or 
order, of the Commons. And a wise government should be 
careful that the elements of that estate should bear a close 
relation to the moral and material development of the country. 
Public opinion may not yet, perhaps, be ripe enough to 
legislate as to the subject, but it is sufficiently interested in 
the question to ponder over it with advantage ; so that, when 
the time comes for action, we may legislate in the spirit of the 
English Constitution, which would absorb the best of every 
class, and not fall into a ' democracy ' which is the tyranny of 
one class, and that one the least enlightened!^ 

Long before 1867, these continuous utterances culminated 
that typical speech of 1859, which mooted a comprehensive 
plan of enlarged representation of political power, yet un- 
disturbed balance, and which would have made " a representa- 
tive assembly that is a mirror of the mind as well as of the 
material interests of England." 

I shall quote largely from this unfamiliar speech. It 
illustrates how far his lifelong principles applied to a juncture 
before the artisans were wholly free from agitation against 
monarchy, and those institutions which fence it round. All 
Radical schemes, compassing "manhood suffrage," all Whig 
schemes, merely delaying its day by seeking to reduce rental 
or property qualifications to an arbitrary minimum, were his 



LofC. 



loo DISRAELI 

aversion. Set, as he always was, against including whatever 
at the moment formed the dregs of ignorance, or the sediment 
of an unentitled populace, he already favoured that " rating " 
basis which Lord John Russell, always constitutional, had 
himself propounded in his abortive plan of 1854, and which 
Disraeli was to carry out in 1867 as a safeguard of stability in 
the boroughs. But in 1859 Lord Derby did not consider its 
application feasible. Disraeli had, therefore, now to forego it. 
Refusing to make any reductions in the franchise, or yield an 
inch to " detached " democracy, he now proposed to attain 
steadiness, to vary the vote, and to represent enlightenment 
contrasted with mere property by recommending the creation 
of the " compound householder " (" dwellers in a portion of any 
house rented in the aggregate at ;S^20 ") ^ ; by a new suffrage 
for several small ownerships of property in the funds and 
savings banks ; and for education, by enfranchising graduates, 
ministers of religion, physicians, barristers, and certain school- 
masters. He thus both forecasted, so far as was then practic- 
able, household suffrage as against household democracy ; and 
at the same time sought to represent education and ensure 
variety. By his attendant scheme of redistribution, he tried 
to prevent the counties from being " swamped " by the towns, 
while at the same time he jealously guarded the local in- 
dependence of the boroughs. His purpose was to protect 
the country districts against that invasion from the cities of 
agrarian demagogues which, after his death, the stride forward 
of 1884 was to impel.^ 

But "finality is not the word of politics." Progress 
changes possibilities. He had to wait till the pear was ripe ; 
till the working man had been really reconciled to monarchy 
and its institutions ; till the ground had been laid for a 
generous scheme of national education, and cleared by the 
sharply defined position of parties, which at last brought into 
relief the issues between democracy as a due element and as 
a domineering class. Nor, if he were now alive, would he fail 
to discern that the appeal of present imperialism to present 

1 This preluded the " Lodger franchise," of which, in 1867, Disraeli 
said he had been " the father " (cf. p. 108). 

2 Cf. p. 109. 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION loi 

democracy will be dangerous if made to it as a deciding class 
before it has acquired the governing faculty by long appren- 
ticeship. Democracy as a leaven, democracy as the lump, 
are obviously distinct. The one is "popular and national," 
the other despotic or cosmopolitan. Our artisans are now 
intensely national and patriotic ; but the " submerged tenth " 
would soon show themselves tyrants over the community. 

The pith of his argument is that mere numbers can never 
form the ground of representation, which should rest on 
influence even more than interest. 

"... It appears to me that those who are called parlia- 
mentary reformers may be divided into two classes. The 
first are those . . . who would adapt the settlement of 1832 
to the England of 1859, and would act in the spirit and 
according to the genius of the existing constitution. . . . But, 
sir, it would not be candid, and it would be impolitic not to 
acknowledge that there is another school of reformers having 
objects very different from those which I have named. The 
new school, if I may so describe them, would avowedly effect 
a parliamentary reform on principles different from those which 
have hitherto been acknowledged as forming the proper 
foundations for this House. The new school of reformers are 
of opinion that the chief, if not the sole, object of representa- 
tion is to realise the opinion of the numerical majority of the 
country. Their standard \s population^ and I admit that their 
views have been clearly and efficiently placed before the 
country. Now, sir, there is no doubt that population is, and 
must always be, one of the elements of our representative 
system. There is also such a thing as property, and that 
too must be considered. I am ready to admit that the 
new school have not on any occasion limited the elements 
of their representative system solely to population. They 
have, with a murmur, admitted that property has an equal 
claim to consideration ; but then, they have said \}cl2X property 
and populatio7i go together. Well, sir, population and property 
do go together — in statistics, but in nothing else. Population 
and property do not go together in politics and practice. I 
cannot agree with the principles of the new school, either if 



I02 DISRAELI 

population or property is their sole, or if both together con- 
stitute their double, standard. I think the function of this 
House is something more than merely to represent the popu- 
lation and property of this country. This Hotise ought, in my 
opiition, to represent all the interests of the country. Now, those 
interests are sometimes antagonistic, often competing, always 
independent and jealous ; yet they all demand a distinctive 
representation in this House, and how can that be effected, 
under such circumstances, by the simple representation of the 
voice of the majority, or even by the mere preponderance of pro- 
perty ? If the function of this House is to represent all the 
interests of the country, you must, of course, have a represen- 
tation scattered over the country, because interests are 
necessarily local. An illustration is always worth two argu- 
ments ; permit me, therefore, so to explain my meaning, if it 
requires explanation. Let me take the two cases of the 
metropolis and that of the kingdom of Scotland. . . . Their 
populations are at this time about equal. Their respective 
wealth is very unequal. . . . There is between them the annual 
difference in the amounts of income upon which the schedules 
are levied of that between ;^44,ooo,ooo and ;^30,ooo,ooo. Yet 
who would for a moment pretend that the various classes and 
interests of Scotland could be adequately represented by the 
same number of members as represent the metropolis ? So 
much for the population test. Let us now take the property 
test. . . . The wealth of the city of London is more than 
equivalent to that of twenty-five English and Welsh counties 
returning forty members, and of 140 boroughs returning 232 
members. The city of London, the city proper, is richer than 
Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham put together. ... It 
is richer than Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, Hull, 
Wolverhampton, Bradford, Brighton, Stoke - upon - Trent, 
Nottingham, Greenwich, Preston, East Retford, Sunderland, 
York, and Salford combined — towns which return among them 
no less than thirty-one members. Yet the city of London has 
not asked me to insert it in the bill, which I am asking leave 
to introduce, for thirty-one members. ... So much ... for the 
property test. . . . But the truth is, that men are sent to this 
Ho2tse to preresent the opinions of a place, and not its power. . . . 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 103 

" Why, sir, the power of the city of London or that of the 
city of Manchester in this House is not to be measured by the 
honourable and respectable individuals whom they send here 
to represent their opinions. I will be bound to say that there 
is a score — nay, that there are threescore — members in this 
House who are as much and more interested, perhaps, in the 
city of Manchester than those who are in this House its 
authoritative and authentic representatives. . . . Look at the 
metropolis itself, not speaking merely of the city of London. 
Is the influence of the metropolis in this House to be measured 
by the sixteen honourable members who represent it ? . . . 
... So much for that principle of population, or that prin- 
ciple of property, which has been adopted by some ; or that 
principle of population and property combined, which seems 
to be the more favourite form. . . . There is one remarkable 
circumstance connected with the new school, who would build 
up our representation on the basis of a numerical majority, 
and who take population as their standard. It is this — that 
none of their principles apply except hi cases where population 
is concentrated. The principle of population is ... a very 
notorious doctrine at the present moment, but it is not novel. 
... It was the favourite argument of the late Mr. Hume. . . . 
The principle, in my opinion, is false, and would produce results 
dangerous to the country and fatal to the House of Commons. 
But if it be true, . . . then I say you must arrive at conclu- 
sions entirely different from those which the new school has 
adopted. If population is to be the standard, and you choose 
to disfranchise small boroughs and small constituencies, it is 
not to the great towns you can, according to your own prin- 
ciples, transfer their members. . . . 

"Let us now see what will be the consequence if the 
population principle is adopted. You would have a House, 
generally speaking, formed partly of great landowners and 
partly of great manufacturers. I have no doubt that, whether we 
look to their property or to their character, there would be no 
country in the world which could rival in respectability such 
an assembly. But would it be a House of Commons ; would 
it represent the country ; would it represent the various in- 
terests of England } Why, sir, after all, the suffrage and the 



I04 DISRAELI 

seat respecting which there is so much controversy and con- 
test, are only means to an end. . . . You want in this House 
every element that obtains the respect and engages the interest 
of the country. . . . You want a body of men representiitg the 
vast variety of the English character ; men who would arbi- 
trate betiveen the claims of those great predominant interests ; 
who would temper the acerbity of their controversies. You 
want a body of men to represent that considerable portion of the 
community ivho cannot be ranked under any of those striking 
and powerful heads to which I have referred, but who are in 
their aggregate equally important and valuable, and perhaps as 
ntimerous^ 

He then adverted to the borough system as an indirect 
machinery for this purpose, and contended that those who 
would sweep it away must substitute "machinery as effec- 
tive." "... Now," he continued, "there is one remarkable 
feature in the agitation of the new school. . . . They offer 
no substitute whatever. ... I will tell you what must be the 
natural consequence of such a state of things. The House 
will lose, as a matter of course, its hold on the Executive. 
The House will assemble. It will have men sent to it, no 
doubt, of character and wealth ; and having met here, they 
will be unable to carry on the Executive of the country. 
Why ? Because the experiment has been tried in every 
country, and the same result has occurred ; becattse it is not 
in the power of one or tzvo classes to give that variety of cha- 
racter and acquirement by which the administration of a country 
can be carried on. Well, then, what happens "i We fall back 
on a bureaucratic system^ and we should find ourselves, after 
all our struggles, in the very same position from which, in 
1640, we had to extricate ourselves. Your administration 
would be carried on by a court, minister, perhaps by a court 
minion. It might not be in these times, but in some future 
time. The result of such a system would be to create an 
assembly where the members of Parliament, though chosen 
by great constituencies, would be chosen from limited classes, 
and perhaps only from one class of the community. . . ." His 

' This once more is emphasised by De Tocqueville as the essence of 
centralisation. 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 105 

own prescription for breaking monotony, he described as 
"lateral," not "vertical" extension, 

Disraeli determined to settle this question himself, and 
to settle it by the admission to the franchise of the " work- 
ing" classes of the country, and not by lowering it to the 
" man in the street," or the submerged tenth. In these views 
he followed the Toryism of Cobbett rather than the Radical- 
ism of Hume. Discussing Lord John Russell's proposals of 
i860 "for the representation of the people" (which, though 
it adopted the principle of rateability, was, in fact, merely a 
reduction of the borough franchise to £6, and of the county 
occupation to ;^io), Disraeli labelled its "simplicity" as "of 
a mediaeval character, but without any of the inspiration of 
the feudal system, or any of the genius of the middle ages." 
It sought only to scale down a property qualification. The 
" claims of intelligence, acquirement, and education " were 
ignored. As regarded the borough franchise, not fitness, but 
number was the principle ; and the numerical addition 
accrued to one class only. 

"... Let us now consider," Disraeli continued, "whether 
the particular class upon whom the noble lord is about to 
confer this great political power, are a class who are incapable, 
or who are unlikely to exercise it. Are they a class who have 
shown no inclination to combine "i Are they a class incap- 
able of organisation ? Quite the reverse. If we look to the 
history of this country during the present century, we shall 
find that the aristocracy, or upper classes, have on several very 
startling occasions shown a great power of organisation. / 
think it cannot he denied that the working-classes, especially 
since the peace of 181 5, have shown a remarkable talent for 
organisation, and a power of discipline and combination inferior 
to none. The same, I believe, cannot be said of the middle 
classes. With the exception of the Anti-Corn Law League, 
I cannot recall at this moment any great successful political 
organisation of the middle classes ; and living in an age when 
everything is known, we now know that that great con- 
federation . . . owed its success to a great and unforeseen 
calamity, and was on the eve of dispersion and dissolution 
only a short time before that terrible event occurred." The 



io6 DISRAELI 

upper and lower classes, he argued, were capable of organisa- 
tion and ideas, and the organisation of the latter had been 
secret as well as disciplined. Their intelligence and their 
discipline, then, were reasons for conferring the franchise, but 
their traditional organisation was also a reason for care in its 
bestowal, and such discrimination as would not give them a 
predominance, "... What has been . . . the object of our 
legislative labours for many years, but to put an end to a 
class-legislation which was much complained of.? But you 
are now proposing to establish a class legislation of a kind 
which may well be viewed with apprehension. . . ." 

Disraeli discerned that what in England is discontent, on 
the Continent is disaffection ; and that revolution abroad 
corresponds to reform at home. Chartism verged perilously 
on the uprisings which endanger countries where government 
is out of touch with the governed. It was a sign that institu- 
tions might be on their trial, and it demanded that those 
institutions should resume reality, and win once more the 
affections of the people. 

In his resolve to spread the franchise in his own manner, 
and to neutralise the revolutionary bias of agitators and 
secret societies, he never lost sight of the growing force of 
public opinion. He himself was " a gentleman of the press ; " 
in the improved and multiplied newspapers he hailed the 
great safety-valve afforded to England by that " publicity " 
on which " the great fabric of political freedom " has been 
reared. " Free intercourse," he exclaimed in the 'thirties, " is 
the spirit of the age ! " So late as 1872, he observed, "... That 
has been the principle of the whole of our policy. First of 
all, we made our courts of law public, and during the last 
forty years we have completely emancipated the periodical 
press of England, which was not literally free before, giving 
it such power that it throws light upon the life of almost 
every class in this country, and I might say upon the life of 
almost every individual." In the press (the light of which 
he perhaps valued more than the warmth), he welcomed an 
antidote against hidden and perilous associations ; and 
believed that if the self-respecting hand-labourer received the 
vote (as he was entitled to do), he would exercise it in the 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 107 

cause of freedom, of loyalty, and of order. In 1862, he 
declared "parliamentary discipline founded on its only sure 
basis, sympathising public opinion," to be the watchword of 
his propaganda. The passage summarises much that I have 
discussed. 

"... To build up a community, not upon Liberal opinions, 
which any man may fashion to his fancy, but upon popular 
principles which assert equal rights, civil and religious ; to up- 
hold the institutions of the country because they are the em- 
bodiment of the wants and wishes of the nation, and protect 
us alike from individual tyranny and popular outrage ; equally 
to resist democracy " (as a form of government) " and oligarchy, 
and to favour that principle of free aristocracy which is the 
only basis and security for constitutional government ; . . . 
to favour popular education, because it is the best guarantee 
of public order ; to defend local government, and to be as 
jealous of the rights of the working man as of the prerogative 
of the Crown and the privileges of the senate ; — these were 
once the principles which regulated Tory statesmen {i.e. 
Bolingbroke and Wyndham), and I for one have no wish 
that the Tory party should ever be in power unless they 
practise them." 

In his great speech during the summer of the following year 
on " popular principles " and " liberal opinions," as well as on 
the introduction of his actual Reform Bill, he gave expression 
once more to his distinction between " popular privileges " and 
" democratic rights" — 

"... If the measure bears some reference to the existing 
classes in this country, why should we conceal from ourselves 
that this country is a country of classes, and a country of classes 
it will ever remain ? What we desire to do is to give every 
one who is worthy of it a fair share in the government of the 
country by means of the elective franchise ; but at the same 
time we have been equally anxious to maintain the character 
of the House. . . ." 

As a matter of tactics, Disraeli had of design framed the 
bill on lines stricter than he was prepared to concede. He 
desired that the re-settlement should be enduring, and he 
deliberately appealed to the co-operation of both parties for 



io8 DISRAELI 

this purpose. He had "leaped in the dark," he had "shot 
Niagara." The storm of obloquy, desertion, and censure broke 
over his head, but he was unmoved, because his proposals 
-were based on principles long held and patiently matured. 
Of the lodger franchise he had long ago been the " father." An 
unmitigated household franchise he refused as too "democra- 
tic." The " direct taxation " franchise and the " dual vote," 
which were intended as barriers for the middle classes, he 
surrendered. That educational franchise which was bound up 
with a cause that from boyhood had been dear to him ; that 
"savings-bank" franchise which established the right of 
industrial thrift to representation, he was forced to abandon, 
by the clamour of the very party that desired education with- 
out religion, and labour as the mere instrument of capital. 
Looking back impartially, these derided " fancy franchises " 
seem to me a deplorable loss, and even now it would be well 
to recognise that the mind and the character should have 
representative faculties wholly apart from the power of pro- 
perty. Disraeli was forced to cast them overboard that he 
might preserve the vessel itself during the party hurricane. 
But the essential qualifications of residence and rateability he 
maintained in the teeth of Mr. Gladstone, and under all the 
modifications of the principle which ensued. His mind was 
fixed to steer between the extremes alike of those who, under 
the mask of emancipation, purposed the despotism of a single 
class, and of those who desired to form the government of 
this country by the caprice of an irresponsible, an unintelli- 
gent, and an indiscriminate multitude. And he proved his 
earnest sincerity by the appeal which closed his speech on the 
second reading : " Pass the bill, and then change the ministry 
if yon like" 

It is not within my province to track the maze of alterca- 
tions which attended every step of a bill on which Disraeli, 
contrary to his wont, spoke more than three hundred times, 
or to raise the dust of controversy this year revived. But, 
were it so, I could prove how faithful Disraeli remained 
to the central ideas which had animated him from his youth. 
So far from having passed a " liberal " measure, he had passed 
under colossal difficulties, that for which he had long striven, 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 109 

and in a manner which remedied the defects of 1832 without 
endangering the repose of the State. Indeed, for the second 
time he actually re-created the Conservative party, and, to the 
surprise of some of his friends and all his enemies, discovered 
in the unknown region of the toilers, with whom he had ever 
sympathised, whom he had always trusted, but whom the 
Whigs had driven to revolt, and to whom the "cheapest 
market" Radicals perpetually begrudged protection, health, 
and alleviation — discovered, I say, in these elements — the 
pawns of ignoble partisanship — his truest props of order and 
of allegiance. The measure and the events of 1884 were to 
prove the rightness alike of his confidence and of his caution. 
The counties with a lowered franchise became a prey to 
agitators. The towns remained staunch and steadfast. And 
this, though in 1867 Mr. Bright had sneered at Disraeli for 
having " lugged " his " omnibus " of stupid squires up the 
hill of democracy. 

In his speech of 1859, Disraeli protested against any "pre- 
dominance of household democracy." He kept his word. 
Speaking at Edinburgh in the autumn of 1867, he remarked 
on this very topic — 

"... It may be said you have established a democratic 
government in England, because you have established house- 
hold suffrage, and you have gone much further than the 
measures which you previously opposed. . . . Now, I am not 
at all prepared to admit that household suffrage with the 
constitutional conditions upon which we have established it 
— namely, residence and rating — has established a demo- 
cratic government. But it is unnecessary to enter into that 
consideration, because we have not established household 
suffrage in England. There are, I think I may say, probably 
four million houses in England. Under our ancient laws, and 
under the Act of Lord Grey, about one million of those 
householders possessed the franchise. Under the Act of 
1867, something more than half a million will be added to 
that million. Well, then, I want to know if there are four 
million householders, and one and a half million in round 
numbers possess the suffrage, how can 'household suffrage' 
be said to be established in England ? " 



no DISRAELI 

Thus the proper balance of power, which the bill of 1832 
impaired by the exclusion of labour and the enfeeblement of 
aristocracy, was restored. The people were at last reconciled 
to their leaders. It had been by accident that the Whigs 
found themselves arbiters of the national fate in 1832, and it 
may be conceded that, according to their lights, they honestly 
did their best. To Lord Grey and his colleagues Disraeli 
was always just and respectful. But the breach then made 
demanded the amends which Disraeli had meditated for years. 
By cancelling qualifications arbitrary and irrational, by confer- 
ring political power only in conjunction with social and political 
responsibility, by regarding society more than the state, and 
influence than interest, by persistent courage and purpose, this 
great project succeeded and has endured. The day may come 
in the process of generations when, as Disraeli has imagined 
elsewhere, industry may cease to repose upon industrialism 
alone, and representation may also cease to seem the sole 
machinery of politics ; when enlightenment and public opinion 
may form a real national conscience ; and when leadership 
may prove itself independent of artificial forms. But till that 
day arrives, it will be madness in England to give each citizen, 
irrespective of any qualification but existence, a voice in 
the Legislature, or entrust them with the sway of an 
empire. His avowed aim and his accomplished triumph 
were "to restore those rights which were lost in 1832 to the 
labouring class of the country," and to " bring back again that 
fair partition of political power which the old Constitution of 
the country recognised." A year after its enactment, in his 
great Irish speech he spoke of it as " a most beneficent and 
noble Act," and he added that he looked " with no apprehen- 
sion whatever to the appeal that will be made to the people 
under the provisions of the Act. I believe you will have a 
Parliament full of patriotic and national sentiment, whose 
decisions will add spirit to the community and strength to the 
State." " Time," which was " Contarini Fleming's " record in 
the book of "Adam Besso," has proved the fulness of his 
foresight and the skill of the adjustment. 

The mistrust of this great measure at the time, even by 
men of intelligence, may be justified by the objection that 



DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION iii 

in the distant future Labour may resume its war against 
authority in its coming conflict with Capital ; and that a rigid 
conservatism of defiance is preferable to an adaptive conser- 
vatism of development. But whenever that hour strikes, it 
will be seen that Disraeli's statesmanship has prevented the 
revolution which a conservatism of defiance must have pre- 
pared and entailed. Disraeli will have helped to preserve the 
English immunity from the violences which mark such 
upheavals elsewhere. He sought with all his might to 
quicken Capital into duty, and to hearten Labour by confer- 
ring privilege, not as a sop, but as a reward, while, by 
alleviating misery through creative enactments, he has con- 
servatised Labour and kept it in touch with the national 
scheme. 

It may not, perhaps, have been wholly realised how 
harmonious Disraeli's utterances respecting the progressive 
principles of representation in England have been. That is 
my excuse for treating the subject with insistence, though by 
no means with completeness. To have done so would risk 
the exhaustion of the reader as well as of the subject. 
Disraeli prevented the raid of alien and disruptive democracy 
from making England a home. Out of the common he 
extracted the choice. He revived the democracy long 
inherent in the English Constitution ; he naturalised the 
democratic idea on the soil of tradition and order ; and 
thereby he cemented the solidarity of the State and the 
welfare of the nation. He proved that " progress " is not 
synonymous with push, and that in going forward it is wise 
also to look back, lest the goal should be a precipice. Still, 
long as this disquisition has necessarily been, I may hope 
that it is not dull, since, in Mrs. Malaprop's aphorism, " I 
don't think there is a superstitious article in it." 



CHAPTER III 

LABOUR—" YOUNG ENGLAND "— " FREE 
TRADE" 

IN Vivian Grey, Disraeli mocks at the attitude of the early 
political economists towards Labour in the person of 
"Mr. Toad," who defined it as "that exertion of mind or 
body which is not the involuntary effect of the influence 
of natural sensations." In the second of his long series of 
election addresses, he promised to " withhold " his support 
from every ministry which will not originate some great 
measure to ameliorate the condition of the lower orders, . . . 
to liberate our shackled industry. . . ." The subject is closely 
allied to much already surveyed. Here, however, I shall for 
the most part leave politics alone, and confine myself mainly 
to the social aspects of the question, for from this standpoint 
he himself approached it. On Mr. Villiers' resolutions in 
1852, he distinctly stated that he and his friends had opposed 
the repeal of the Corn Laws on the main ground that it 
would " prove injurious to the interests of Labour ; " on the 
subsidiary ground that it would injure " considerable interests 
in the country." He had, two years before, urged that it 
" was a question of labour, or it was nothing." Even in the 
Revolutionary Epick, fifteen years earlier, he had sung, " The 
many labour, and the few enjoy." 

The extracts given in the preceding chapter from Disraeli's 
speech on Mr. Hume's motion in 1848, illustrate the central 
ideas which he enforced with singular pertinacity in all his 
published works and public utterances. 
They are mainly these. 

It was an age of emancipation, and Peel liberated com- 
merce. In so doing he disjointed Labour. His two great 

112 



LABOUR 113 

reforms — that of the Tariff and that of the Corn Laws 
— designed as inter-remedial, were certainly calculated 
to disturb and dislocate Labour, the one by unloosing 
the full forces of straining competition ; the other by 
revolutionising the centres of industry, by transferring 
population from the country to the city, by impairing the 
landed interests, both high and low, by shifting the distribu- 
tion of toil. At the very moment before his relaxation of 
the Corn Laws, Peel, conscious that he would disorganise 
Labour,^ had been unconsciously converted to the "right to 
physical happiness" system of Manchester — the dryest em- 
bodiment of the theory of the French "physical" equalitarians, 
on which I touched in my last chapter. His economics of 
" cheapness," the results of which he feared in relation to the 
distribution of employment, thus became associated with a 
principle that, as I have shown, demands " unlimited employ- 
ment of labour." He freed Commerce, but he unsettled 
Labour, already rebelling against the harsh workings of the 
new Poor Laws. Disraeli asked himself if reduced tariffs 
would augment purchasing power, if dethroned land would be 
succeeded by any novel power for alleviating the Labour thus 
unhinged. And, further, he asked whether the middle 
class of 1846 would not reap the benefit without bearing the 
burden, just as it had done in the Reform of 1832. What 
would be the effect of discontent on the institutions of the 
country } The two great problems during the whole decade 
of 1830-40, when there had occurred a real renaissance, 
an awakening, had been Democracy and the Church. Was 
Democracy to be detached from the order and orders of 
the State.!* vvas it to be an anti-national solvent.? And" was 
the Church to realise its mission as a society of believers 
instead of being perverted into a library of assent ? So far 
Chartism and Apostasy had been the answers. Were Sir 
Robert Peel's arithmetical measures, excellent as they were in 
theory, any practical power for regeneration } Chartism's inner 
causes had been both the want of employment and the despair 
of the employed. In 1840, he proclaimed, to his leader's 
dismay, his deep sympathy, not with Chartism, " but with the 

^ Cf. Morley's " Gladstone," vol. i. p. 262. 



114 DISRAELI 

Chartists," preyed on by ambitious leaders, and victimised by 
official indifference. Throughout he regarded the whole 
" condition of England " question from its moral and social 
standpoints — to which economics should be subordinate — as 
touching Labour at one end and Leadership at the other. 

The claims of Labour, he says, are paramount as those of 
property. Property and Labour should be allies, and not 
foes ; nay, Labour is itself the property of the poor, out of 
which the property of the rich is accumulated. The gentle- 
men of England should form the advanced guard of Labour ; 
and, moreover, the master-workmen themselves compose "a 
powerful aristocracy." So long as property was allied both to 
land and manufacture, a feeling of public spirit and public 
duty in the main characterised the large employers. But a 
financial oligarchy was bound to arise, and has arisen, linked 
by no visible ties to the workers, and generous more by 
gifts of " ransom " than by personal participation ; a system 
of commerce, too, without leaders, which now works in groups 
and merely on "cheapest market" principles, has sprung into 
being. And, moreover, the vast multiplication of machines 
tended all along, and tends more and more with the huge 
increase of intercommunication, to exalt mechanism into 
life and to degrade the labourer into a machine, himself 
devoid alike of powers and of duties. Over and over again 
Disraeli championed, not only the employment of the people, 
but variety in their employments. He is never wearied 
of scathing any system which might enhance the grinding 
monotony of mechanical toil. And all this, while the clamour 
for material enjoyment rises higher hour by hour ; and the 
labourer is driven, in his hard quest after squalid enjoy- 
ments, more into the dark corners of organisations for 
coercing a State expected to pauperise him, than to philan- 
thropists eager to raise his condition by preaching over his 
head, before the roof that covers it is decent. 

To combat the latter evils — among others — Disraeli 
started the "Young England Movement," and afterwards 
protested that the old system of trade reciprocity, with tariffs 
as levers, had proved a better guarantee for social happiness 
than the retail wealth system of "free imports." At the same 



LABOUR 115 

time, as I shall notice, after the repeal of the Corn Laws 
had cheapened commodities, he was decidedly of opinion that 
to go back would be too violent an upheaval, unless sanc- 
tioned by the deliberate voice of an instructed nation under 
absolutely new conditions. To forestall the dangers of 
financial and commercial plutocracy,^ he planned and sup- 
ported the many alleviative measures with which his name 
and Lord Shaftesbury's are connected, in the teeth, be it re- 
membered, of the Radical and Utilitarian opposition ; while he 
proclaimed in the 'seventies, as he had before proclaimed 
in the 'fifties, his programme of Sanitas sanitatum — Health 
before Wealth. He foresaw, too, the overcrowding of huge 
cities through the waste of the soil, with all its attend- 
ant miseries ; even so early as 1846 he had urged that 
" nothing is so expensive as a vicious population ; " and he felt, 
also, that if life without toil is "a sorry sort of lot," toil 
without life is an infinitely worse one. Above all, he looked 
in this matter, as throughout, far more to the regeneration of 
society than to State interference, so easily evaded and so 
devitalising. And he lamented the colossal enlargement of 
the towns, which isolates while it excites. 

"... In cities," he protests in Sybil, " that condition is 
aggravated. A density of population implies a severer 
struggle for existence, and a consequent repulsion of elements 
brought into too close contact. In great cities men are 
brought together by the desire of gain. They are not in a 
state of co-operation, but of isolation, as to the making of 
fortunes ; and for all the rest, they are careless of neighbours. 
Christianity teaches us to love our neighbours as ourself; 
modern society acknowledges no neighbour." But he 
descried already a rift in the gloom. "Society, still in its 
infancy, is beginning to feel its way." 

The late 'thirties and early 'forties, with their agita- 
tions against middle-class apathy and aristocratic neglect, 
witnessed to the reality of the disease which was known as 
the " condition-of-England question." Many of the nobles 
were not noble; never had been "so many gentlemen, 

1 Cf. the passage ixom-The Press, cited ante, p. 7 note, and /^j/ at 
opening of Chapter VI. 



ii6 DISRAELI 

and so little gentleness." '^ Exclusion from the suffrage 
prevented the natural representation of injuries, and com- 
pelled Labour to band itself covertly, and often under 
leaders embittered and embittering with personal and clash- 
ing ambitions. The Reform Act, contended Disraeli, had 
not reposed the government in abler hands, nor elevated the 
head or enlarged the heart of Parliament. "... On the 
contrary, one House of Parliament" (he is writing in 1845) 
"has been irremediably degraded into the decaying position 
of a mere court of registry, possessing great privileges, on 
condition that it never exercises them ; while the other 
Chamber, that at the first blush and to the superficial 
exhibits symptoms of almost unnatural vitality, . . . assumes 
on a more studious inspection somewhat of the character of 
a select vestry fulfilling municipal rather than imperial 
offices, and beleaguered by critical and clamorous millions who 
cannot comprehend why a privileged and exclusive senate is 
requisite to perform functions which immediately concern 
all. ..." 

Undoubtedly Labour is far better situated in 1904 
than it was in 1844, and undoubtedly this improvement is 
partly due to Disraeli's influence and action. The ideals of 
" Young England " have borne fruit. Our " Toynbee Halls " 
and university settlements, the recognition of noblesse oblige, 
the trained public opinion that superior light and leading 
are in duty bound to lead and enlighten as well as help 
the poor ; that the poor are their tenants ; that — 

" Not what we give, but what we share : 
The gift without the giver is bare ; " 

— these and their tone are its outcome. His policies of 
health and humanisation, of wholesome housing before tech- 
nical teaching, for first emancipating Labour from carking 
cares and then entrusting it with public duties, have pros- 
pered. Chartism and its allied mutinies have subsided into 
citizenship. The artisans of to-day are princes in comparison 
with what they were. The contracted sloth of the utilitarian 
middle class has been shaken to follow what emanated from 
1 Bishop Latimer — quoted as motto to Sybil. 



LABOUR 117 

the universities. In his Guildhall speeches of 1874 and 1875 
Disraeli could point with pride to Capital at one with Labour, 
and to operatives in sympathy with privileges which they 
shared. At this moment they are catered as well as cared 
for ; and yet their independence is far completer than when 
it was aggressive because it was cowed. 

But none the less, the fatal overcrowding which he 
foresaw, the self-divestment by Mammon of direct and im- 
mediate responsibilities, has produced a fresh class of the 
" sweated " and rookeried masses, multiplying the unemployed 
and — what is worse — the unemployable in compound ratio, 
and still menacing the physique of the nation. The 
pressure of poverty is ever with us ; of its wretchedness 
research has indeed called forth a science. As what we deemed 
the lowest ascends, a fresh depth of distress is always bared 
to our shame. The democratisation of local government 
through the county councils has indeed done much, and will 
do more, for the proletariate ; but their lack, with notable 
exceptions, of high leadership, their tendency to municipal 
centralisation, their careless and inexperienced prodigality 
with the public purse, their bias towards pauperisation, 
their tendency to promote the feverish political ambitions 
of a class, and sometimes to confuse the cause of industry 
with that of its captains, remain a danger, though, I believe, 
a vanishing danger, to the State. 

Disraeli's earliest novel — one of the books "written by 
boys," vague in its restlessness and untamed in its dazzling 
extravagance, contains in its episode of " Poor John Conyers " 
the germ of that genuine sympathy with Labour which he 
afterwards more seriously developed. Apart from his human 
instincts and from his desire for a real national unity, it was 
founded on his contempt for the merely mechanical or formal in 
society ; and in 1845, on that tour of experience in Lancashire 
which brought home to him anew the terrible gulf between 
" the two nations " of rich and poor, and which the pathos, the 
humour, the wit and the thought of Sybil have immortalised. 

Few that have read Coningsby will forget the vivid im- 
pressions of Manchester machinery in its pages. They are. 



ii8 DISRAELI 

perhaps, too familiar for quotation, and I prefer here to cite 
some sentences from Sybil. 

"... Twelve hours of daily labour at the rate of one 
penny each hour ; and even this labour is mortgaged," groans 
the loom- worker. "... Then why am I here .^ ... It is 
that the capitalist has found a slave that has supplanted the 
labour and ingenuity of man. Once he was an artisan ; at 
the best he only now watches machines ; and even that occu- 
pation slips from his grasp to the woman and the child. The 
capitalist flourishes, he amasses wealth ; we sink, lower and 
lower ; lower than the beasts of burthen ; for they are fed 
better than we are, cared for more. And it is just, for 
according to the present system they are more precious. 
And yet they tell us that the interests of Capital and of 
Labour are identical. If a society that has been created by 
labour suddenly becomes independent of it, that society is bound 
to maintain the race whose only property is labour, out of the 
proceeds of that other property which has not ceased to be pro- 
ductive. . . . We sink among no sighs except our own. And 
if they give us sympathy — what then ? Sympathy is the 
solace of the Poor ; but for the Rich there is Compensation. 

" You (the nobles) govern us still with absolute authority, 
and you govern the most miserable people on the face of the 
globe. 'And is this a fair description of the people of 
England } ' said Lord Valentine. ' A flash of rhetoric, I pre- 
sume, that would place them lower than . . . the serfs of 
Russia or the lazzaroni of Naples.' 

" ' Infinitely lower,* said the delegate, ' for they are not 
only degraded, but conscious of their degradation. They no 
longer believe in any difference between the governing and the 
governed classes of this country. They are sufficiently en- 
lightened to feel they are victims. Compared with the 
privileged of their own land, they are in a lower state than 
any other population compared with its privileged classes.' 

"'The people must have leaders,' said Lord Valentine. 

" ' And they have found them,' said the delegate. 

"'When it comes to a push, they will follow their 
nobility,' said Lord Valentine. 

" * Will their nobility lead them ? ' said the other dele- 
gate. . . . 



LABOUR 119 

"*We have an aristocracy of wealth,' said the delegate 
who had chiefly spoken. * In a progressive civilisation wealth 
is the only means of class distinction ; but a new disposition 
of wealth may remove even this.' 

"*Ah! You want to get at our estates,' said Lord 
Valentine, smiling, ' but the effort on your part may resolve 
society into its original elements, and the old sources of dis- 
tinction may again develop themselves.' 

"'Tall barons will not stand against Paixhans* rockets,' 
said the delegate. 'Modern science has vindicated the 
natural equality of man.' 

"'And I must say I am very sorry for it,' said the other 
delegate ; ' for human strength always seems to me the natural 
process of settling affairs.' " 

To cherish national unison as a higher form of human 
harmony than the discordant bond of automatic groups ; to 
force the governing to sympathise with the governed ; to 
establish that "Labour requires regulation as much as Pro- 
perty ; " to raise, train, improve and establish labour " rather," 
as he wrote in 1870, "by the use of ancient forms and the 
restoration of the past than by political revolutions founded 
on abstract ideas," were Disraeli's aims. In all except the 
important one of the last, the means for accomplishing them, 
Carlyle's message is the same. There is a passage in Con- 
ingsby where Disraeli dreams that a day may come when 
industry will cease to obey mere industrialism. There is 
another in Carlyle's "Past and Present"^ to the same 
effect. For both, the nobility of labour was a central 
idea ; for both, the conviction that the cavaliers of England 
should prove its captains ; for both, Sanitas sanitatum was a 
practical ideal. "Deliver me," cries Carlyle, "these rickety 
perishing souls of infants, and let your cotton trade take its 
chance." Disraeli and Carlyle alike abominated the doctrine 
that national happiness consists merely in material wealth. 
A shared or common wealth of endeavour and influence was 
a goal for each ; for each, too, the main problem remained, 

^ Book iv. ch. iv. : " . . . To be a noble Master among noble Workers 
will again be the first ambition with some few ; to be a rich Master only 
the second." 



I20 DISRAELI 

"How, in conjunction with, inevitable democracy, indispensable 
sovereignty is to exist" 

" . . . If there be a change," said Sybil, " it is because in 
some degree the People have learnt their strength." 

" Ah ! Dismiss from your mind those fallacious fancies," 
said Egremont. " The People are not strong ; the People 
never can be strong. Their attempts at self- vindication will 
end only in their suffering and confusion. It is civilisation 
that has effected, that is effecting, this change. It is that 
increased knowledge of themselves that teaches the educated 
their social duties. There is a day-spring ifi the history of 
this nation which perhaps those only zvho are on the mountain- 
tops can as yet recognise. You deemyou are in darkness, and 
I see a dawn. The new generation of the aristocracy of 
England are not tyrants, not oppressors, Sybil. . . . 
Their intelligence, better than that, their hearts, are open 
to the responsibility of their situation. But the work 
that lies before them is no holiday work. It is not the 
fever of superficial impulse that can remove the deep-fixed 
barriers of centuries of ignorance and crime. Enough that 
their sympathies are awakened ; time and thought will bring 
the rest. They are the natural leaders of the People, 
Sybil. ..." 

I may be permitted to point out a likeness and a contrast. 
The seething ferment on the Continent was pricking Labour 
into an insurgent materialism which, in the dearth of ancient 
and active institutions fraught with the balm of healing, 
leagued itself to attack all forms of authority, kingship and 
capital alike. 

" AhjN^he People, this poor King in tatters," wrote Heine 
from Paris in 1 848, " has fallen on flatterers far more shame- 
less, as they swing their censers around his head, than the 
courtiers of Byzantium or Versailles. These court lackeys of 
the People incessantly vaunt its virtues and excellences, 
crying aloud : ' How beautiful is the People ! how good is the 
People ! how intelligent is the People ! ' No, you lie. The 
People is not beautiful ; on the contrary, it is very ugly. 
But its ugliness is due to its dirt, and will vanish with public 
baths for the free ablutions of his Majesty. A piece of 



LABOUR 121 

soap, too, will do no harm ; and we shall then see a People 
in the beauty of cleanliness — a washen People. The People 
whose goodness is thus magnified is not good at all. It is 
often as bad as other potentates. But its baseness flows 
from hunger. When once it has well eaten and drunk, it 
will smile, gracious and well-favoured as the rest. Nor is 
his Majesty over-intelligent. He is possibly stupider than 
the others — stupid with the bestiality of his minions ; he 
will only love or heed the speakers, or howlers, of the jargon 
of his passions : he hates every brave soul that converses in 
the speech of reason, and that would ennoble and enlighten 
him." 

Heine was leading "Young Germany." A few years 
earlier, Disraeli was leading " Young England." The contrast 
between the atmosphere of the two countries deserves a 
passing comment. "Young England" aimed at betterment 
in that very feudal spirit which the poet — the " unfrocked 
Romantic" — by turns breathed and spurned. In Germany 
the weird medley of the "Romantic School" had for fifty 
years been striving to rewaken the myths, the chivalry, the 
wistfulness of the past. But its direct influences were merely 
aesthetic, and mainly sentimental ; while they eventually 
became actually anaemic — a vague reverie of mediaeval moon- 
light and pallid ghosts. The uprooting French Revolution 
had swept away both castle and cobwebs, and in Germany 
the " folk-song " was the sole antiquity to which this Romantic 
attachment could cling, and by which it could touch the 
patriotism of a disunited people. But in England, Scott's 
"buff-jerkin" revival, at which Carl'yle so unjustly scoffed, 
was more than a literary sport ; it had already braced the 
nation with the fresh breeze of an invigorating tradition. It 
brought back and home the inheritance of a real throne and 
a real nobility, of chivalry, of daring, and of prowess ; it 
reminded the people that the humblest was once protected by 
the highest ; and though it perhaps burked or omitted much 
that disgraced the age of the tournament, the foray, and the 
cloister, it quickened its best, its most hopeful and most 
cheerful elements. It took the dry bones from their moulder- 
ing tomb and put the breath of life, the wholesome laughter 



122 DISRAELI 

of humour, and the brightness of beauty into and about their 
scattered fragments ; whereas in Germany the Romantics 
rather embalmed and buried the living energies of the present 
in a Gothic mausoleum, weird with wan emblems, and chill 
and solemn as a cathedral vault. 

Disraeli recognised that our country thrives by adaptation 
and adjustment ; that it is the region of natural growth, and 
not of sudden blossom ; of the oak, not the aloe. In inter- 
dependence, even more than independence, in the mutual 
ties of classes, Disraeli discerned the English root for demo- 
cratic ideas which had all along lurked in the soil. England 
is great because of that same insular inaccessibility to ideas 
which repelled Heine. Her slowness of insight vanishes 
gradually, and not by leaps and bounds — through growth and 
conduct rather than through universal theories. An idea 
knocks at our gates for generations before it wins admittance ; 
but when it once enters, it becomes naturalised and ceases to 
be alien ; it becomes actualised ; it dwells and walks and votes, 
and has commerce at large. It becomes part of the popular 
life and parcel of the national behaviour. < 

" Young England " prepared the ground for social regene- 
ration. It sought to raise the conditions of labour. It was 
no rose-water club, but, short-lived as it proved, was a real 
forerunner of measures. A word, therefore, upon it may be 
pardoned in this connection. Many in the past century have 
pla}'ed the part of "saviours of society," Robert Owen, 
Ferdinand Lassalle, Napoleon III., Karl Marx, and the 
eccentric Mr. Urquhart, who furnished some of the traits for 
Disraeli's " Sidonia." ^ But none in this country have been at 
once so genuine and effective as this association of " Young 
England ; " for, enlisting the enthusiasm of the high and the 
}-oung, it struck into the roots of national character, without 
which no development is feasible. Young England aimed 
further, at rendering leadership sympathetic with labour. It 
wanted to revive in the lowly a sense of privilege, and in the 

' "Sidonia" stands for several types in addition to Disraeli's own. 
" Oswald Millbank " is in part painted from the young Gladstone. Most 
of the other characters in Coningsby are familiarly ascribed to their 
orisiinals. 



"YOUNG ENGLAND" 123 

noble to quicken higher standards of obligation ; it wished 
to recall the heroic ; and this it tried to accomplish, not by 
social disturbance, but by seeking to arouse ancient ideals 
still slumbering in national traditions. For this purpose it 
appealed to youth — " the trustees of posterity ; " ^ to the 
power of personal influence and example ; and above all, 
it hoped, as I have already noticed, to counteract the 
soullessness of utilitarianism. 

" Ah, yes ! " (Disraeli makes Gerard observe in Sybil) ; " I 
know that style of speculation. . . . Your gentlemen who 
remind you that a working man now has a pair of cotton 
stockings, and that Harry the Eighth was not so well off. At 
any rate, the condition of classes must be judged of by the 
age and by their relations with each other." 

It was also a vigorous protest against that retort of the 
Liberal on the Radical — the sluggish doctrine of laissez-faire, 
the principle of " stew-in-your-own-juice," " devil take the 
hindmost," " muddling through," and " let ill alone." Disraeli 
had combated it from the first : — 

" In Vraibleusia " (I quote from his early satire of Popanilld) 
" we have so much to do that we have no time to think — a 
habit which only becomes nations who are not employed. 
You are now fast approaching the great shell question ; a 
question which, I confess, affects the interest of every man in 
this island more than any other. . . . No one, however, can 
deny that the system works well ; and if anything at any time 
go wrong, why, really Mr. Secretary Periwinkle is a wonderful 
man, and our most eminent conchologist — he no doubt will 
set it right ; and if by any chance things are past even his 
management, why, then, I suppose, to use our national motto, 
something will turn up." 

It further served as antidote to the self-complacence and 
retail outlook of the bourgeoisie. The " Middle-Middles," 
healthfully and powerfully as they symbolise decency, order, 
and common sense, too often lack, even in their educated 

' This phrase he twice repeats ; the first time in that fine speech at 
the Manchester Athenaeum (1844), on the "Acquirement of Know- 
ledge," which expressed his undying sympathy with the ideals, perplexities, 
and possibiUties of youth. 



124 DISRAELI 

varieties, perception and sympathy. At present they pervade 
Parliament, while the Press — which since 1867 appeals more 
and more to the gallery — controls opinion. Hence the dearth 
of accord between the prate of Parliament and a nation that 
realises its unity. Hence springs the momentary decay of 
Parliament itself — not from party spirit, but from the inanition 
of parties representing principles, without which party sinks 
into faction. 

Of the anti-middle class attitude of " Young England," a 
notable instance occurs in " Angela Pisani," the brilliant fiction 
of George Smythe, afterwards seventh Lord Strangford (in 
Disraeli's words), " a man of brilliant gifts ; of dazzling wit, 
infinite culture and fascinating manners," who "could promul- 
gate a new faith with graceful enthusiasm." The tirade is 
placed on the lips of Napoleon, denouncing the "puddle- 
blooded " whom he had " made great men, but could not make 
gentlemen," and its reproaches — certainly not characteristic of 
Disraeli — apply, of course, in an infinitely less degree to 
England. 

The nucleus of " Young England " had begun in a close 
association of university friends. The Cambridge " Apostles " 
comprised Tennyson and Hallam, Monteith and Doyle, and 
" Cool-of-the-evening " Monckton-Milnes. Disraeli, Lord 
Strangford, and Lord John Manners reinforced this nucleus 
with Faber, Hope, Baillie Cochrane (afterwards Lord Lam- 
ington), and others ; they gave them an ampler scope and a 
longer view, but not without murmuring jealousies. They 
taught that the spirit of reform transcended its letter, and 
that the English "romantic school" — ^just as later on the 
English pre-Raphaelites in Art — must reseek the fountain- 
head of original principles, Milnes wrote in 1844: "You 
must have been amused at the name of 'Young England,' 
which we started so long ago, being usurped by opinions 
so different and so inferior a tone of thought. It is, how- 
ever, a good phenomenon in its way, and one of its pro- 
ducts — Lord John Manners — a very fine, promising fellow. 
The worst of them is that they are going about the 
country talking education and liberality, and getting 
immense honour for the very things for which the Radicals 



"YOUNG ENGLAND" 125 

have been called all possible blackguards and atheists a few 
years ago." 

The newer Radical reforms, however, were based on " the 
greatest happiness " principle of utility ; whereas the league 
of "Young England" was founded on the expansion of 
traditions, and more especially on the immemorial rights of 
Labour. What " Young England " really effected was to infuse 
enthusiasm into institutions. In 1838 this same "Mr. Vava- 
sour " of Tancred, and " Mr. Tremaine Bertie " of Endymion, 
had also written : " We have set agoing a new dining club 
which promises well. Twenty of the most charming men in 
the universe met last Tuesday. They won't call it 'Young 
England,' however." It is no disrespect to the memory of 
the late Lord Houghton to say that the vague eclecticism of 
his youth scarcely fostered a robust energy or a keen insight 
His " remarks " on Coningsby in Hood's Magazine under the 
name of " Real England " were a sympathetic commentary ; 
but, a born diletta?ite, he " lionised " ideas as he " lionised " 
genius. He patted intuition on the back. He was the Mrs. 
Leo Hunter of politics ; and he played admirably the part 
of " Bennet Langton " to Carlyle's " Dr. Johnson." He some- 
what prattled of " silences " and " eternities." Well does 
Disraeli make " Waldershare " in Endymion exclaim of him : 
"... What I do like in him ... is this revival of the Pytha- 
gorean system, and heading a party of silence. That is rich." 

Lord Lamington — the " Buckhurst " of Coningsby — who in 
his pleasant glimpse of the movement has supplemented its 
muster-roll by the names of Borthwick and Stafford, quotes 
Serjeant Murphy's pasquinade of " Jack Sheppard." Its last 
verse runs as follows .' — 

" We have Smythe and Hope with his opera-hat. 
But they cannot get Dicky Milnes, thafs flat — 
He is not yet tinctured with Puseyite leavening, 
But he may drop in in the ' cool of the evening^ " 

The " Puseyite leavening " recalls the strictures of Carlyle 
on the High Church proclivities of a portion of the move- 
ment. Coleridge's great book on the Church had undoubtedly 
stirred both thought and enthusiasm. Disraeli, as I shall 



126 DISRAELI 

show hereafter, wished to make the Church a living social 
regenerator of the " national spirit," to see it at once disci- 
plined and enthusiastic, to restore its original functions, to 
render it really " Anglican ; " and in his old age — strenuously- 
opposed as he ever was to the " mass in masquerade," firmly 
resolved as he remained to uphold orderly Protestantism — he 
has outlined at once a portrait and a type of his permanent 
meaning in the person of " Nigel Penruddock ; " just as he has 
drawn a picture of "Young England" Anglicanism in the 
" St. Lys " of Sybil, the prototype of whom was Faber. 

In the spring of 1844, Carlyle thus characteristically 
addresses Monckton-Milnes — 

" . . . (9« the whole, if ' Yaung England ' would altogether 
fling its shovel-hat into the lumber-room, much more cast its 
purple stockings to the nettles, and hofiestly recognising what was 
dead, . . . address itself frankly to the magnificent but as yet 
chaotic Future, . . . telling men at every turn that it knew and 
saw for ever clearly the body of the Past to be dead {and even 
to be damnable, if it pretended to be still alive and to go about in 
a galvanic state), what achievement might not ' Young England^ 
manage for us ! " Carlyle was ever a free-thinking Puritan, a 
creedless Calvinist. "What was dead," "what pretended 
still to be alive," was the Church of England. ... It is easy 
to deride that youthful display of poor metre, but fine 
enthusiasm, " England's Trust," by Lord John Manners. 

" With Roncesvalles upon his banners 
Comes prancing along my Lord John Manners?'' 

Carlyle misliked in him what he disliked in Scott, the 
" properties " of Romanticism. But the earnestness of 
Manners's little volume is beyond question. In the Church 
it recognises the national recuperative force and salve for 
anarchy. "We laugh at all commandment save our own," 
sighs the boyish devotee — 

" Yes, through the Church must come the healing power 
To bind our wounds in this tumultuous hourP 

And Labour had ever been the sacred trust of the Church. 
Divorce Labour from religion, and the State falls. It had 



"YOUNG ENGLAND ' 127 

been the fault of the Church herself that Labour had gone 
out of history, as it were, and crossed over to a more primitive 
form of true religious fervour under the Methodist revival ; 
but the Church alone, as a national growth, could hope, if 
true to its high destinies, for the preservation of the great 
mass of the populace from the disruptive elements of unbelief. 
The Church, too, was the natural educator of the people. 
True, Manners's Anglicanism was that of Laud ; true, also, to 
that name he rhymes "adored." But it is also true that the 
whole brotherhood felt that if the Church, and through it the 
State, was to be quickened, it must revert, like the State, to 
its origin ; it must no more be regarded merely as an 
endowed official or as a consecrated police, but as a divine 
institution. Moreover, Disraeli also regarded the English 
Church as the special protectress of popular liberties. I shall 
return to this subject in its proper place hereafter ; but I 
may here add that these convictions of " Young England " 
were vehemently advocated by Disraeli in his speeches on the 
Irish Church more than twenty years after the "Young 
England " brotherhood came to an end. 

Disraeli always urged the immense importance of parochial 
life as even greater than political. Had the higher classes 
understood " the order of the peasantry," ricks and dwellings 
would not have been burned down in the 'thirties. In advo- 
cating the claims of ancient country-side customs, he raised 
the plea of humanising ceremony — one certainly cherished by 
the upper classes for themselves. The people would not, it 
is true, be " fed " by morris revelries, and they starved equally 
without them. 

It was not to be expected that such a cause, with such a 
leader, followed by aristocratic youth and attended by the 
revival of maypole dances and tournaments, should escape 
ridicule and even suspicion. Grey-headed noblemen, who 
resented any efforts to render institutions real, and for 
whom enthusiasm meant vulgarity, shook their heads over 
the follies of their sons, seduced by the wiles of a designing 
adventurer. But to such as still doubt Disraeli's sincerity in 
these matters, and refuse to be convinced by a long chain 
of after-utterances, I would simply suggest the following fact. 



128 DISRAELI 

Disraeli's speech of April ii, 1845, on the Maynooth grant ^ 
broke up the " Young England " association, and terminated 
his leadership of it. What was the main principle of that 
speech ? It was this : " . . . You find your Erastian system 
crumbling from under your feet. ... I have unfaltering 
confidence in the stability of our Church, but I think that 
the real source of the danger which threatens it is its connec- 
tion with the State, which places it under the control of the 
House of Commons that is not necessarily of its communion." 
He denied that the State had ever " endowed " the Church. 
The Church owned property which was the patrimony of the 
poor. He argued that since 1829 ^^e State's relation to the 
Church had altered. He implied, as he often afterwards 
asserted, that the union of Church and State was for the 
benefit of the State far more than for that of the Church. 
Now, this attitude was eminently that of his " Young Eng- 
land " professions. And yet its fearless expression dissolved 
a gathering which his detractors maintained was used merely 
as a step to personal advancement. 

Carlyle, in the passage above cited, evinced the same 
irritable impatience that he exhibited in 1849, when he 
cursed parliamentary institutions because a particular Parlia- 
ment had over-talked itself. He was an iconoclast who, 
however, often confused the symbol with the faith that under- 
lies it, and in dethroning the image would have dashed the 
glamour of its shrine. In 1848 — the year of anarchy — 
Disraeli made a famous speech (the speech which procured 
him his future leadership of the House). He upheld these 
institutions while he denounced that very Parliament which 
moved Carlyle's indignation. The future has proved him 
right, and the sage wrong. The practical fruits of the future, 
too, have vindicated the peculiar tinge that Disraeli himself 
lent to the " Young England " brotherhood. 

One closing word on the social aims of " Young England." 
I may summarise them by the phrase " Health and Home." 
They compassed the relief of industry, and they implied the 

^ This was the speech in which he said that Gladstone founded 
" a great measure on a small precedent. He traces the steam-engine 
always back to the tea-kettle." 



"YOUNG ENGLAND " 129 

effort to shame the knights of industry into some chivalry 
towards it. 

" Pitt," wisely comments Mr. Kebbel, " ended the quarrel 
between the King and the aristocracy, and reconciled the 
Whig doctrine of monarchy with the Whig doctrine of Parlia- 
ment. Peel accommodated Toryism to the new regime 
established by the Reform Bill, and his name will always be 
identified with the progress of middle-class reform. Lord 
Beaconsfield carried Toryism into the 7iext stage, and made it 
the business of his life to close up the gap in our social system 
which . . , had been gradually widening, and to reco7icile 
the working classes to the Throne^ the Church, and the 
Aristocracy'.' 

To those who object that beyond Foreign Policy and the 
last Reform Bill, Disraeli effected little that is lasting, this is 
the answer. He was prouder of his many social reforms than 
of his Berlin Treaty. He was a born conciliator. He put a 
new and powerful leaven into the social lump, and he inspired 
the generous youth of the country. What he especially sought 
to mitigate was irresponsible Plutocracy, with a shifting stock 
of vagrant and unrelated Labour bought in the cheapest 
market, sold in the dearest ; without stability, without ties, 
without allegiance. 

" ' I am not against Capital ' (he makes " Enoch Craggs " 
declaim in Endymioji), ' what I am against is Capitalists.' 

" ' But if we get rid of capitalists, we shall soon get rid of 
capital' 

" ' No, no,' said Enoch, with his broad accent, shaking his 
head and with a laughing eye. ' Master Thornberry (the 
Radical) has been telling you that. He is the most inveterate 
capitalist of the whole lot. . . . Master Thornberry is against 
the capitalists in land ; but there are other capitalists nearer 
home, and I know more about them. I was reading a book 
the other day about King Charles — Charles I., whose 
head they cut off — I am very liking to that time, and read a 
good deal about it ; and there was Lord Falkland, a great 
gentleman of those days, and he said when Archbishop Laud 
was trying on some of his priestly tricks, that " If he were to 
have a Pope, he would rather the Pope were at Rome than 

K 



I30 DISRAELI 

Lambeth." So I sometimes think, if we are to be ruled by 
capitalists, I would sooner, perhaps, be ruled by gentlemen of 
estate, who have been long among us, than by persons who 
build big mills, who come from God knows where, and, when 
they have worked their millions out of our flesh and bone, go 
God knows where. . . . '" 

The two river bills caried at Disraeli's instigation in 
1852 ; the twenty-nine bills for ameliorating the position of 
factory operatives, passed despite those Radicals who pre- 
dicted ruin for the manufacturer ; the Employers and Work- 
men Acts, the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 
the Poor Law Amendment Act, the Commons Act, the 
Artisans' Dwellings Acts, the Public Health Act, the Rating 
Act, the Employers' Liability Acts, the Agricultural Holdings 
Act, among many others, attest the victory of " popular 
Toryism " over " class Liberalism," and the protection of 
suffering against selfishness. "Young England," like all 
Utopian propaganda, was a romantic vision, and exceeded 
actuality. But in essence it has been eminently practical. 
Classes (of which England is made) are infinitely more in 
communion than they were in 1840. The effort to set them 
by the ears and to oppose the " masses " to the " classes " has 
ignominiously failed. The Church of England has roused 
itself to the national needs beyond all comparison with those 
days. The appeals of Sybil, Coningshy, and Tancred, ridiculed 
as rodomontade and branded as a charlatan's dodge, have 
been rendered into action, and stand confessed as the deeply 
felt and pondered schemes of a poet and a statesman. 
" When," says Bolingbroke, " great coolness of judgment is 
united to great warmth of imagination, we see that happy 
combination which we call a genius." Such has proved 
Disraeli, and his inmost soul is embodied in that "Young 
England " which he organised and encouraged in a freezing 
atmosphere. Over fifty years ago he exhorted youth, at the 
Manchester Athenaeum, as " the trustees of posterity." " The 
man," he then said, " who did not look up would look down, 
and he who did not aspire was destined perhaps to grovel." 
The youth of to-day is far more conscious of its burden than 
was the youth of any class in the 'forties. 



"FREE TRADE " 131 

It was mainly on these social grounds that Disraeli 
resisted that system of free imports which has gone down to 
history as " Free Trade." He never denied that it was calcu- 
lated to enrich manufacturers and manufacturing centres ; he 
grew to admit its benefits to the consumer, although these 
were by no means wholly due to its action ; but he depre- 
cated its " economic frenzy." He held that it injured the 
producer^ and played havoc both with land and distribution 
of labour. He thought it would eventually impair morale and 
physique, and sacrifice the general welfare to the material 
interests of a class ; and, before it was nationally adopted, he 
considered that all ends would have been better served by 
the adoption of that system of reciprocal treaties ^ — on a 
principle called by him " at once national and cosmopolitan " 
— which was termed " Free Trade " in the days of Pitt, 
and had been inaugurated in 17 13 by the abortive tariff 
of the great Utrecht Treaty ; nor will it now be doubted 
that if in 1846 a comprehensive scheme of technical educa- 
tion had been set on foot, many of the evils engendered by 
over-competition would have been avoided, whatever fiscal 
system this country had chosen. 

Writing so early as 1832 to the Wycombe electors, he 
even then declared : " . . . With regard to the Corn Laws, I 
will support any change, the basis of which is to relieve the 
consumer without injuring the farmer" This was not the 
" Radical " doctrine of those days. 

Disraeli has shown conclusively that in English history 
such a principle as absolute " protection " never existed. 

^ The rise in wages and prices about 1851 was mainly due not to 
" Free Trade," but to the influx of newly discovered gold. In 1842, 
when Peel was revising the tariff, bread was actually cheaper than it had 
been for many years previously, or till 1849 afterwards. In 185 1 corn had 
sunk to about 40J., nearly 2>s. lower than Peel had contemplated as 
possible. The immediate results of repeal were not the cheapening 
of bread ; but the sudden cheapening of commodities was effected by 
Peel's revision of the tariff. In 1851, however, all other agricultural 
produce but wheat was at fair prices, and Disraeli then wrote, " It is 
possible that agriculture may flourish without a high price of wheat or 
without producing any " {Correspondence, p. 262). 

2 "... A large system of commercial intercourse on the principle of 
reciprocal advantage." 



132 DISRAELI 

The original principle up to the time of Anne was to feed 
and supply a population then small enough so to be supported 
at home, and to encourage the wealth and power of trade. 
He has shown that Walpole, in this respect imitating the 
rival whom he destroyed, wisely followed this principle in its 
colonial applications ; though he unwisely divorced productive 
trade from the land, and set the moneyed against the landed 
classes, the high finance against the country gentlemen, into 
whose shoes, however, it soon stepped. He has shown that 
when the colonial system broke down by the secession of 
our greatest and worst governed colony, Pitt the Second 
reverted to the old, the natural principle of exchange with 
the continent by tariff. The exigencies of the Revolutionary 
and Napoleonic wars forced an interlude ; and for a time 
England was fed by foreign corn in free competition with 
her own — the very time when the loaf was dearest. But 
Lord Liverpool recurred to the principle ; and Peel up to 
1845 — when his hand was confessedly forced by the appalling 
famine in Ireland — was in favour of the varying duties 
termed the sliding scale, as opposed to the fixed duties of 
the Whigs and the no-duties of the Radicals. That scale 
he eventually surrendered under the impulse of Lord John 
Russell's "Edinburgh Letter," and was suddenly converted 
by the Manchester School. In logic, and apart from 
human and national instincts, their theories were as irre- 
fragable as those of our modern bimetallists, and of those 
ancient economists on whose doctrines they rested. But 
their lasting usefulness depended on the final achievement 
of a cosmopolitan confederation. Disraeli presaged with 
weighty reasons, scouted when they were detailed, that other 
nations would never fall into the scheme ; he analysed the 
special conditions of France, Germany, and America. He 
also foretold, concerning corn, in common with all articles 
of certain and practically unlimited demand (as cotton and 
tea, for examples), that "the moment you have a settled 
market, in exact proportion to the demand, prices will fall. 
This is the inevitable rule." He pressed further the grave 
peril, hardly yet realised, of England's dependence on foreign 
supplies in time of war. But beyond all, he emphasised the 



"FREE TRADE" 133 

social dangers — the misery for individuals and for classes. 
In this precipitate measure towards a material class- 
millennium, he discerned a large element of possible 
denationalisation, a displacement of labour which must un- 
avoidably deluge the unwieldy towns, and which would to 
some extent relax the fibre of the nation and weaken its 
very means of defence, the replacement of excellence by 
cheapness, and of national welfare by wealth, the substitution 
for the landed interest which ought to preponderate though 
never to predominate, not, as seemed for the moment, by a 
high-toned class of responsible manufacturers, but eventu- 
ally by an overwhelming clique of irresponsible capitalists 
with self-interests fluid as their portable property ; the 
decrease of the national, the natural sway of large land- 
owners inheriting a representative sense of accountability to 
tenants and dependants ; a probably great fall in agriculture 
and its profits, prices and wages ; the waste on a large scale 
and the depopulation of the soil itself; the special aggrava- 
tion of ruinous elements in Ireland ; an ultimate decay, when 
foreign competition should develop, of that very manufactur- 
ing interest the system was protested to advantage and intended 
to protect ; for he divined already in the 'forties that to fight 
hostile tariffs with " free imports " could only benefit England 
while continental manufacturers were in comparative infancy. 
Most of this in great measure he foresaw, and in all this 
has been amply justified. What he did not anticipate was 
the enormous stature which these developments have now 
reached. Multitudes of telling instances might be given 
from those remarkable speeches, the pith and point of which 
were always how this change would affect the labouring 
classes. I will single out two alone, and both from that 
great speech of 1846 on Mr. Miles's amendment, which, in the 
light of the present, reads like a continuous prophecy. 
Speaking of the displacement of labour in connection with 
the then sparse distribution of the precious metals, which he 
pointed out six years later must again modify the situation 
owing to the recent and immense discoveries of gold, he said : 
"... Every year and in every market English labour will 
receive less in return of foreign articles. But gold and silver 



134 DISRAELI 

are foreign articles ; and in every year and in every 
market English labour will have less command of gold and 
silver. ..." "... Supposing you import five millions more 
from Russia than you ever did before, how will you make 
your payments, if they take no more additional goods from 
you than they do now ? . . . I know it will be replied they 
manage these things by means of bills and so on. But that 
will not improve the case. Suppose . . . you buy Russian 
bills on Brazil and New York to the amount of those five 
millions, and you thus complete your transaction. But you 
have already supplied the Americans and the Brazilians with 
as much of your goods as you cared to take, and if you 
want to sell more to them, you must do so at a great 
sacrifice. . . ." 

Once more, as regards foreign competition. He fore- 
casted that of America ; and in demolishing the argument 
that Prussia's protective Zollverein was being " shaken ; " 
he instanced Mecklenburg, induced by English remonstrances 
to abstain from joining, but now complaining that : "... 
After all the sacrifices we have made, if the Zollverein are 
to have free importation to England, we have no advantage 
whatever, and the best thing we can now do is to join and . . . 
advance the cause of native industry." 

Disraeli resolved that if the repeal became law, the burdens 
which had been thrown on the land, because of the privileges 
which were its ancient trust, should in fairness be mitigated ; 
that it should compete as freely as other manufacturers, for 
he never ceased to object to a distinction, as manufacturers, 
between the farmer, the miller, and the mill-owner. 

"... I know," he urged in a speech full of dignity and 
wisdom, " that we have been told that ... we shall derive 
from this great struggle not merely the repeal of the Corn 
Laws, but the transfer of power from one class to another, 
to one distinguished for its intelligence and wealth — the 
manufacturers of England. My conscience assures me that 
I have not been slow in doing justice to the intelligence of 
that class ; certain I am that I am not one of those who 
envy them their wide and deserved prosperity ; but I must 
confess my deep mortification that in an age of political 



"FREE TRADE" 135 

regeneration, when all social evils are ascribed to the opera- 
tion of class interests, it should be suggested that we are to 
be rescued from the alleged power of one class, only to sink 
under the avowed dominion of another ; " and he concluded 
with the hope that if the monarchy of England, " mitigated 
by the acknowledged authority of the estates of the realm," 
was to prove " a worn-out dream," if England was to sink 
" under the thraldom of capital, ... of those who while they 
boast of their intelligence are prouder of their wealth," if a 
new force must be summoned to maintain " the immemorial 
monarchy of England, that " novel power " might be found 
in " the invigorating energies of an educated and enfranchised^ 
people." 

All this has happened. A thraldom to the middle class 
came into being, and was tempered by Disraeli's own franchise 
bill, and by an education act sufficient, though not conceived in 
the decentralised form which Disraeli desired, but never won 
the opportunity of effecting. And out of this thraldom is 
springing that other of plutocracy — one which exercises great 
political power without assuming great political duties ; one 
in the interest of which, it seems to me, some of the new fiscal 
changes now being mooted are designed. 

These wholesale changes I cannot but feel that Disraeli 
would have withstood. Many features in Mr. Chamberlain's 
plan would have enlisted his sympathy, but in their entirety 
he would have thought them hazardous. Some protection 
for the grazier he might have upheld ; he always laid stress 
on the importance of home markets. A moderate duty on 
corn, in partial, though most inadequate, aid of agriculture, 
he might have favoured as a necessary lever for colonial 
reciprocity ; especially as it would be spread over the untaxed 
colonial, the foreign dutiable imports. It would scarcely 
much affect the price of bread, and the very Peelites fore- 
went the fallacy of the dear loaf; although, as in 1852, he 
would show that even a four shilling duty on imported corn 
could never restore the land to its former footing. "We 
ought," he would again argue, "to go to the country on 
principle, and not upon details. We say we think there 
should be measures brought forward" (as since have been 



136 DISRAELI 

brought forward) "to put the cultivators of the soil in a 
position to allow them to compete with foreign industry." 
What, however, he then urged with all his force was that the 
fiscal revolution had confessedly caused vexatious taxes. 
"Sir," he said in 1852, " I do now and ever shall look on the 
changes which took place in 1846, both as regards the repeal 
of the Corn Laws and the alteration of the Sugar Duties, 
as totally unauthorised. I opposed them . . . from an appre- 
hension of the great suffering which must be incurred by such 
a change. That suffering in a great degree, though it may 
be limited to particular classes, has in some instances been 
even severer than we anticipated. But I deny that at any 
time after those laws were passed, either I, or the bulk of 
those with whom I have the honour to act, have ever main- 
tained a recurrence to the same laws that regulated those 
industries previously to 1846." He then showed the differ- 
ence between Lord Derby's proposed " fixed duty " and the 
old state of affairs ; while he continued : " . . . When we come 
to this question of fixed duty, ... I must say now what I 
said before in this House, that I will not pin my political 
career on any policy which is not after all a principle, but 
a measure. Our wish is, that the interests which we believe 
were unjustly treated in 1846,^ should receive the justice 
which they deserve, with as little injury to those who may 
have benefited more than they were entitled to, as it is 
possible for human wisdom to devise. Sir, I call that recon- 
ciling the interests of the consumer and the producer, when you 
do not permit the consumer to flourish by placing unjust taxes 
upon the producer ; while at the same time y oil resort to no tax 
which gives to the producer ; an unjust and artificial price for 
his production. . . ." 

But any prohibitive tax on foreign manufactures — that is 
another matter, one which would protect certain trades at the 

1 The land was promised compensation, but received none worth the 
name. It was deluded by vague promises of actual benefit under the new 
system. Peel even asserted that corn would never fall under forty-eight 
shillings per quarter. 

It is often forgotten that in 1843 Peel favoured a preferential tariff for 
Canada, and that both he and Gladstone were then for Canadian " re- 
taliation" on America. 



"FREE TRADE" 137 

expense of the community, and aggravate the very evils which 
Free Trade introduced. Such a system must press all the 
harder on that class of consumers whose pay would remain 
unaffected by its results, and who would, in fact, be subsidising 
our colonies out of their emptied pockets. The sentiment of 
the colonies he would have prized beyond measure, but 
other means for riveting it might be found ; and in the 
undeveloped condition of many among them, would not a 
Canadian favouritism sow a harvest of jealousies ? Moreover, 
the colonial population as a whole is still far too scanty for 
the replacement of our markets abroad ; and further, the two 
main channels of cheap capital and British prosperity — our 
carrying trade and London's commercial position as the clear- 
ing-house of the world — might be revolutionised by changes, 
to which no limit could be fixed. And again, the remission 
of Income Tax ought in justice to accompany such a system, 
for that tax was revived by Peel expressly because the 
revenue had to be reimbursed for its losses on adopting the 
measures for free imports. With respect to " dumping," ^ its 
conditions contain its cure. England, no longer the main 
workshop of the world, cannot perhaps be so generous as 
heretofore, but she can still afford to be generous. As for 
the promise of higher wages through protective duties, wages 
are more likely to rise through the resumption of gold imports 
from South Africa ; while the joint result of retaliatory tariffs 
and such imports would be doubly to enhance the price of 
commodities for the mass. On the other hand, the vision of 
a self-supporting empire he would honour, and equally the 
sincere and commanding zeal of its prophet. But he would 
surely argue that the times were far from ripe, and that 
small and gradual beginnings might lay firmer foundations 
than a colossal combination of incompatibles. Again, he 
would, as the writer fancies, deplore a loud and unsolicited 
appeal to the passions of a multitude and the greed of a class 
easily thus led into a lordship of mob despotism. At the 
same time, he would certainly recognise, as Mr. Chamberlain 

' It is only the old evil of over-production and " glut in the market.' 
While England was still the main manufacturer and exporter, she herself 
periodically " dumped," and suffered from the process. 



138 DISRAELI 

alone has fully recognised, the crying need for a better dis- 
tribution of employment. 

Disraeli over and over again affirmed that since the nation 
had endorsed this vital change, its reversal was impracti- 
cable unless the considered national demand for it became 
overwhelming. It was one of his cardinal ideas that without 
such deliberate demand no great change of national policy 
should be risked in any department. In 1852, he and 
Lord Derby appealed to the country on a modified issue of 
this question — that of a fixed duty. The country's answer 
Disraeli considered as final, even in that regard ; nor, so far 
as he was able, would he ever permit these momentous issues 
to be reopened by any party or section. He remained 
devoted to the reciprocity principle.- He believed that " give 
and take " is the foundation of trade which is barter. But, 
though he descried rocks ahead in the future, he recognised 
that the consumer had benefited by the free opening of our 
ports, that so far as material wealth was concerned, England 
had become the emporium and the banker of the world. On 
the other hand, this very prosperity had aggravated the 
misery of a class and had raised those problems which are 
still engaging anxious attention. Utilitarianism, the "cheapest 
market " theory, had triumphed in the establishment of unre- 
stricted competition, but the upshot of that competition 
was an increasing strain and disorganisation of native labour. 
With these evils he left the quickened spirit of " Young 
England " to cope ; while he himself strove to meet them by 
the remission of the now unjust burdens laid on the land, his 
industrial franchise bill, and his cherished policy of sanitas 
sanitatuni. He had, at any rate, largely influenced the opinion 
of his generation in bringing home to men's minds and con- 
sciences the equality of the rights of Labour with those of 
property, and the adequacy of constitutional forms to enforce 
them ; nor did he ever cease to press them in his writings 
and speeches. But as a statesman he had always to choose 
between evils ; and of these a forced disturbance of a nation- 
ally adopted system, which by hasty expedients might tend 
to disorder and to dispersal, he ever considered the graver. 
To experiment he always opposed experience. 



"FREE TRADE " 139 

Speaking only two years before his death, he said — 
"So far as I understand . . . reciprocity is barter. I 
have always understood that barter was the first evidence of 
civilisation ^ — that it was exactly the state of human exchange 
that separated civilisation from savagery. . . . My noble 
friend (Lord Bateman) read some extracts, . . . and he 
honoured me by reading an extract from the speech I then 
made in the other House of Parliament. That was a speech 
in favour of reciprocity — a speech which defined what was 
then thought to be reciprocity, and indicated the means by 
which reciprocity could be obtained. I do not want to enter 
into the discussion whether the principle was right or wrong, 
but it was acknowledged in public life, favoured and pursued 
by many statesmen who conceived that by the negotiation of 
a treaty of commerce, by reciprocal exchange and the lower- 
ing of duties, the products of the two negotiating countries 
would find a freer access and consumption in the two 
countries than they formerly possessed. But when my noble 
friend taunts me with a quotation of some rusty phrase 
of mine forty years ago, I must remind him that we had 
elements then on which treaties of reciprocity could be negotiated. 
At that time, although the great changes of Sir Robert Peel 
had taken place, there were one hundred and sixty-eight 
articles in the tariff which were materials by which you 
could have negotiated, if that was a wise and desirable 
policy, commercial treaties of reciprocity. What is the 
number you now have in the tariff? Twenty-two. Those 
who talk of negotiating treaties of reciprocity — have they 
the materials? . . . You have lost the opportunity. . . . The 
policy which was long ago abandoned, you cannot now resume. 
You have at this moment a great number of commercial 
treaties . . . nearly forty, with some of the most considerable 
countries in the world ... in which 'the most-favoured- 
nation ' clause is included. Well, suppose you are for a system 
of reciprocity as my noble friend proposes. He enters into 
negotiations with a state ; he says : ' You complain of our 
high duties on some particular articles. We have not many, 
we have a few left ; we shall make some great sacrifice to 
^ A satirical passage in his very early Popanilla may be compared. 



I40 DISRAELI 

induce you to enter into a treaty for an exchange of pro- 
ducts.' But the moment you contemplate agreeing with the 
state, . . . every other of the forty states with ' the most- 
favoured-nation ' clause claims exactly the same privilege. The 
fact is, practically speaking, reciprocity, whatever its merits, is 
dead. . . . The opportunity, Hke the means, has been reUn- 
quished ; and if this is the only mode in which we are to 
extricate ourselves from the great distress which prevails, 
our situation is hopeless. I should be very sorry to say, 
whatever the condition of the country, its condition is 
hopeless. . . ." 

" I cannot for a moment doubt that the repeal of the Corn 
Laws — on the policy of which I do not enter — has materially 
affected the condition of those who are interested in land. 
I do not mean to say that this is the only cause of landed 
distress. There are other reasons — general distress, the 
metallic changes,^ have all had an effect. But I cannot shut 
my eyes to the conviction that the termination of protection to the 
landed interest has materially tended to the condition in which 
it finds itself. But that is no reason tvhy we sho2ild retrace our 
steps, and authorise and sanction any violent changes. This 
state of things is one which has long threatened. ... It has 
arrived. ... I cannot give up the expectation that the energy 
of this country will bring about a condition of affairs more 
favourable to the various classes which form the great landed 
interest of this country. I should look upon it as a great 
misfortune to this country that the character, and power, and 
influence of the landed interest and its valuable industry, 
should be diminished, and should experience anything like a 
fatal and a final blow. It would, in my opinion, be a mis- 
fortune, not to this country alone, but to the world, for it has 
contributed to the spirit of liberty and order mori than any other 
class that has existed in modei'n times. . . . But ... I cannot 
support my noble friend when he asks us to pass resolutions 
of this great character, and when he himself disclaims the 
very ground {i.e. protection) on which he might have framed, 

' These he had long before predicted, and his forecast that they 
would cause some of the prosperity of manufacture, apart from " Free 
Trade," has come true. 



''FREE TRADE " 141 

not what I think was a correct, but a plausible case. It is a 
very unwise course, in my opinion, when the country is not in a 
state so satisfactory as we could wish . . . to propose any ini- 
quity which has not either some definite object, or is likely to 
lead to some action on the part of those who bring it forward. 
It would lead to great disappointment and uneasiness on the 
part of the country ; and the classes who are trying to realise 
the exact difficulties they have to encounter , . . woiUd 
relapse into a lax state which might render them incapable of 
making the exertions it is necessary for them to make. . . . 
Looking into the state of the country, I do not see there is 
any great mystery in the causes which have produced a state 
of which there is undoubted general complaint. What has 
happened in our own commercial failures during the last ten 
years will explain it. The great collapse which naturally 
followed the convulsion of prosperity which seemed to deluge 
the world and not merely this country — the fact that other 
countries have been placed in an equally disagreeable situa- 
tion . . . these are circumstances which appear to me to 
render it quite unnecessary to enter into an inquiry on this 
subject. ... I do not mean to say that there are not 
moments ... in which an inquiry by Parliament . . . into 
the causes of national distress may not be allowable — may 
not be necessary ; but it must be a distress of a very different 
kind from that which we are now experiencing. We must 
have the consciousness that the great body of the people are 
in a situation intolerable to them. . . ." 

Compare with this that passage from his late Endymion — 
a novel of memories — where " Job Thornberry " (John Bright) 
discusses this very problem with the hero. 

" * . . . But, after all,' said Endymion, * America is as little 
in favour of free exchange as we are. She may send us her 
bread-stuffs, but her laws will not admit our goods, except on 
the payment of enormous duties.' 

" ' Pish ! ' said Thornberry. ' I do not care this for their 
enormous duties. Let me have free imports, and I will soon 
settle their duties.' 

" ' To fight hostile tariffs with free imports,' said Endy- 
mion, ' Is not that fighting against odds ? ' 



142 DISRAELI 

" * Not a bit. This country has nothing to do but to con- 
sider its imports. Foreigners will not give us their products 
for nothing ; but as for their tariffs, if we were wise men, 
and looked to our real interests, their hostile tariffs, as you 
call them, would soon be falling down like an old wall' 

" ' Well, I confess,' said Endymion, ' I have for some time 
thought the principle of free exchange was a sound one ; but 
its application in a country like this would be very difficult, 
and require, I should think, great prudence and moderation.' 

" ' . . . Ignorance and timidity,' said Thornberry, scorn- 
fully. 

" ' Not exactly that, I hope,' said Endymion ; * but you 
cannot deny that the home market is a most important element 
in the consideration of our public wealth, aud it mainly rests 
on the agriculture of the country! " 

To which " Thornberry " retorts that " England is to be 
ruined to keep up rents." 

At all events, it is here, as elsewhere, evident what led 
Disraeli to oppose the introduction of unregulated competition. 
Things have long since marched quickly. The wall of tariffs 
has not tottered ; Disraeli never imagined that it would. 
" Foreigners " now do sometimes " give us their products for 
nothing " through those colossal " Trusts " that make enor- 
mous profits at home to undersell us at a loss and capture our 
markets abroad. Competition has been reduced to the 
absurd. Nor is the Continent in that plight which marked 
it when Disraeli uttered the speech above cited. All these 
changed conditions require changing remedies, but the heroic 
remedy lately advocated may well occasion thoughtful retro- 
spect, and the speech I have chosen may be profitably 
pondered in this connection. 

And can any reader of his utterances doubt that, had he 
lived, he would never have left the problem of the housing of 
the poor to private experiment, or merely municipal omni- 
science ? Thirty-three years ago he wrote as follows : — 

" It is the terror of Europe and the disgrace of Britain," 
says " Lothair " of pauperism ; " and I am resolved to 
grapple with it. It seems to me that pauperism is not so 
much an affair of wages as of dwellings. If the working 



LABOUR 143 

classes were properly lodged, at their present rate of wages, 
they would be richer. They would be healthier and happier 
at the same cost. . . ." 

I will conclude with an excerpt from Disraeli's great 
Crystal Palace speech of 1872. It concerns the remedies 
which he had from the first determined to apply to a state of 
things which the rush of so-called " progress " had induced. 

"... It must be obvious to all who consider the condition 
of the multitude with a desire to improve and elevate it, that 
no important step can be gained unless you can effect some 
reduction of their hours of labour and humanise their toil. 
The great problem is to be able to achieve such results with- 
out violating those principles of economic truth upon which 
the prosperity of all States depends. You recollect that many 
years ago the Tory party believed that these two results might 
be obtained . . . and at the same time no injury be inflicted 
on the wealth of the nation. You know how that effort 
was encountered, how these views and principles were met by 
the triumphant statesmen of Liberalism. They told you that 
the inevitable consequence of your policy was to diminish 
capital ; and this, again, would lead to the lowering of wages, 
to a great diminution of the employment of the people, and 
ultimately to the impoverishment of the kingdom. . . . And 
what has been the result ? Those measures were carried ; but 
carried, as I can bear witness, with great difficulty and after 
much labour and a long struggle. Yet they were carried ; 
and what do we now find .■• That capital was never accumu- 
lated so quickly ; that wages were never higher ; that the 
employment of the people was never greater, and the country 
never wealthier. I ventured to say a short time ago {at 
Manchester) that the health of the people was the most im- 
portant subject for a statesman. It is ... a large subject. 
It has many branches. It involves the state of the dwellings 
of the people, the moral consequences of which are not less 
considerable than the physical. It involves their enjoyment 
of some of the chief elements of nature — air, light, and 
water. It involves the regulation of their industry, the inspec- 
tion of their toil. It involves the purity of their provisions, 
and it touches upon all the means by which you may wean 



144 DISRAELI 

them from habits of excess and brutality. . . . Well, it may 
be the * policy of sewage ' to a Liberal member of Parliament. 
But to one of the labouring multitude of England, who has 
found fever always to be one of the inmates of his household 
— who has, year after year, seen stricken down the children of 
his loins, on whose sympathy and support he has looked with 
hope and confidence ; it is not ' a policy of sewage,' but a 
question of life and death. And I can tell you this, gentle- 
men, from personal conversation with some of the most 
intelligent of the labouring class, that ... the hereditary, the 
traditionary policy of the Tory party that would improve the 
condition of the people, is more appreciated by the people 
than the ineffable mysteries and all the pains and penalties 
of the Ballot Bill. ... Is that wonderful ? Consider the 
condition of the great body of the working classes of this 
country. They are in possession of personal privileges — 
of personal rights and liberties — which are not enjoyed by the 
aristocracies of other countries. Recently they have obtained 
— and wisely obtained — a great extension of political rights ; 
and when the people of England see that under the Constitu- 
tion of this country . . . they possess every personal right of 
freedom, and according to the conviction of the whole country, 
also an adequate concession of political rights, is it at all 
wonderful that they should wish to elevate and improve their 
condition, and is it unreasonable that they should ask the 
Legislature to assist them in that behest, as far as it is con- 
sistent with the general welfare of the realm .-* . . ." 

The crucial problem still exacts, though it need not baffle, 
solution. We are still waiting for the complete answer to the 
question here propounded by Disraeli. 



CHAPTER IV 
CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 

THE equality of man," exclaims Disraeli in Tancred, 
"can only be accomplished by the sovereignty of 
God. The longing for fraternity can never be 
satisfied but under the sway of a common 
Father . . . announce the sublime and solacing principle 
of theocratic equality." 

This is a Semitic idea ; but, then, so is the Church. The 
State, on the other hand, is an Aryan conception. The real 
religion both of Athens and of Rome was the State. These 
radical ideas of Church and State, to which we have grown 
so accustomed, are, in fact, the products of special races and 
the salvage of the centuries. The Romans invented 
" Empire," the Athenians " Democracy," the Jews created 
" Theocracy." 

It may be interesting to inquire how this idea of a spiri- 
tual Church — a colony from the unseen and eternal — has 
been in constant conflict with that other dominant idea of 
the State; and how, among the nations, England alone 
has made any serious or successful attempt to reconcile 
them. For these are the ideas, expressed or implied, of 
Disraeli. I take the liberty of illustrating these ideas afresh 
in my own manner, and in continuous commentary, rather 
than by considering isolated passages scattered through his 
books and speeches, many of which I shall quote later on. 
And the standpoint marked by the title of this chapter is the 
point of view which seems to me to distinguish the many 
varieties of the theme which he presents, and which evidently 
fascinated him. 

A national Theocracy has always been rejected in the 
L 145 



146 DISRAELI 

West. The Roman Church, whose ideal is an international 
Theocracy under an imperial form, is in essence anti-national 
and cosmopolitan ; and for this very reason it became repug- 
nant to those Northern races whose genius makes for 
nationality and independence. Moreover, it is unable itself 
to flourish without the temporal appanage of a State-, and 
it therefore tends to become an impeviuni in imperio. On 
Western soil religion is unable to thrive as a living force 
unless aided by the equipments of the State, which the 
instinct of the West evolved, and to which it is prone ; while 
a non-organised, inorganic creed can no more make a 
Chtirch, which is a society of believers, than a paper 
constitution can make a state, which is the community 
individualised. 

A national Theocracy failed also in the East because the 
faculty for creating a State was deficient. When once 
Theocracy, pure and simple, vanished from Palestine — "the 
fatherland of the Spirit " — Israel and Judah were confronted 
by their inherent inability to found a State. It was this, 
indeed, which gave rise to the Messianic hope, a hope which 
yielded to daily motherhood the consecration of divine 
destiny. For to lend an effective earthly sanction to the 
theocratic ideal, to reconcile without violence the govern- 
ment of a community under the Eternal and Invisible with 
the progress of a community under a visible chieftain, a 
perfect monarch, the founder of a golden age, was required — 
a theocrat king. The Jewish polity was a Church. All 
European churches, on the contrary, are polities. This is 
well recognised by Professor Ewald,^ who proves that the 
State, as such, took no root and found no real place in 
Palestine. The tentatives towards a State conflicted with 
the native theocratic ideals of race aspiration, and failed to 
survive them. And when at length the Incarnation displayed 
the " Perfect King," whose " kingdom was not of this world," 
but "within you," and whose Kingship was "without obser- 
vation," it was the very anti-nationalism of His teaching at a 
period when Rome had tinged Palestine with Western politics 
that perplexed or offended a perverse caste of fanatics athirst 
1 " History of Israel," vol. iv. p. 286. 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 147 

for national unity, although national independence had 
crumbled away. When, once more, the Apostle to the Gen- 
tiles laid the Pauline foundations of an international Christian 
Church, the Jewish nationalism, despite the sublime pro- 
phecies of Isaiah, grew doubly embittered, and closed its 
ears to that theocratic message, which was, in fact, the fulfil- 
ment of its highest aspirations. 

For the ideal of the early Christian Church was un- 
doubtedly an international Theocracy. On this very account 
it disgusted the Roman patriotism which despised it. But 
directly it became acclimatised in the West, and prevailed, it 
also underwent that modification of theocratic ideals which 
the West always entails. It threw itself into the mould of 
the State. It assumed the purple of the Caesars ; it "sent 
forth its dogmas like legions into the Provinces." 

This only happens in Europe ; in the East religions are 
never politicised. The West seeks the tangible and turns to 
myth the wonders that are literal to the Eastern mind. In 
so far as the old Egyptian belief was in the priestly power, it 
may perhaps be termed oligarchical, but not in the Western 
sense. The Church of Buddha is a spiritual brotherhood, 
never a State. Islam, like that from which it sprang, is 
a Theocracy without any inherent organisation. Like it, it 
eventually chose a monarchical headship ; and, like it too, its 
monarchy came to be cleft in twain. It is, I repeat, only in 
the West that creeds are politicised. As the earthly sanc- 
tions for Christianity coarsened through the centuries, it 
became at once Caesarian and cosmopolitan. But the warfare 
between the so-called secular and spiritual powers, which, 
indeed, forms the history of the earliest Middle Ages, soon 
began to impair its birthright of cosmopolitanism. The 
invincible bias towards nationality of the Northern races 
asserted itself. 

Dante, it is true, dreamed of a real Theocracy. But he 
was a strong champion of a monarchical State. He staked 
his hopes on that great Emperor — that "patriot king" — 
whose premature death dashed his vision to the ground. 
And after Dante, Savonarola craved a real Theocracy ; but 
it again assumed that Republican shape which, two centuries 



148 DISRAELI 

later, was to play a greater, though as futile, a part in 
England. The Church one way or another throughout 
Europe perpetually tended towards becoming " a State within 
the State," a " King of kings ; " and in this regard it is not 
a little curious that the present Oratorians still obey the 
antique Florentine Constitution which St. Philip of Neri 
transcribed and embalmed as the rule of his order. In the 
same way the early American Episcopalians brought with 
them, in their three-yearly Conventions, that Triennial Parlia- 
ment which William of Orange grudgingly granted to the 
Tories, and which Walpole was afterwards to repeal for the 
Whigs. Once more, the Pilgrim Fathers brought the ideal 
of Republican forms to America ; but Republican forms soon 
passed into democratic facts. From Jemima Wilkinson to 
Mormonism and Christian science, sects and sectaries have 
abounded. No religious vagary has lacked its audience and 
its franchise. America exemplifies the disadvantage of lack- 
ing a national comprehensive Church in a country whose 
aspirations are national Early in the seventeenth century 
the Presbyterians persecuted the Quaker immigrants with 
a ferocity of which Torquemada might have been proud ; but 
in their turn the American Presbyterians eventually fell a 
prey to their own factions. While she was still a British 
colony, England unwisely forced on America bishops con- 
secrated at home ; but these very bishops were them- 
selves rejected admittance by persecuting Presbyterians, 
who regarded Episcopalians as Jacobites, and taunted 
them as Papists. It was the Society for the Propagation 
of the Gospel that persistently sought to remedy the gross 
anomaly of the Bishop of London being the Bishop of 
America. 

The Reformation in England was in its essence a national 
protest against internationalism. Out of it flowed the notion 
of a national Church like a " national party " (a contradiction 
in terms but a most remarkable actuality), which it, in common 
with France, theoretically justified as prior to Roman usurpa- 
tion. Our Church is one at once rooted in the soil as a civil 
institution, a source of parish life, a security for local govern- 
ment, a bar at once to oligarchy and bureaucracy, against the 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 149 

exclusion of the many from public life,^ the trustee of an 
estate which enables all to become proprietors of the soil, 
which is, as Disraeli termed it, " the fluctuating patrimony of 
the great body of the people ; " and it is also by inheritance 
one paramount in the country as a spiritual authority, an 
educator, a social regenerator, and a mainspring of that toler- 
ance and religious liberty which the great Whig party secured 
for our country. As Disraeli has pointed out repeatedly, the 
union of Church and State means the hallowing of the civil 
power, the investment of secular authority with religious 
sanction, the loss of which the State would be the first to feel 
and regret, should the bond be severed. 

England, then, is the only nation that has reconciled 
through compromise the spiritual ideas of Theocracy with the 
dominant forms of the State. 

But the English Church, headed by the English king, was 
soon faced by Puritanism ; and of this phase Disraeli, through 
his father's history, was a deep student. 

Puritanism was cradled among small traders, conscious of 
their virtues, but socially ill at ease. It at once became 
terribly at ease in the courts of Zion. It began with a retail 
outlook, and it soon politicised its creed. It became emi- 
nently republican, nor was it ever democratic. Instinctively 
counter to all forms, whether "temporal" or "spiritual," it 
aimed at the destruction both of Monarchy and the Church, 
and yet it set up an exclusiveness of its own. The Jewish 
Theocracy had, as I have pointed out, broken down even 
under that monarchical shape which suited it, just because 
its outward State apparatus was mechanical and out of touch 
with the development of national life. The finer spirits of 
Puritanism — and they were very fine — had these features to 
reckon with. Cromwell, like Savonarola, compassed an im- 
practicable solecism. He desired a Republican Theocracy. 
His scheme only chimed with that of the Church which he 
sought to ruin in this, that he too wished religion to be nation- 
ally organised — to be political. But the result was an intolerant 
fanaticism of mutually persecuting sects, and a Parliamentary 

' That the Church was "a main obstacle to oligarchical power " 
Disraeli pointed out as early as in his Rtinnymede Letters^ 



I50 DISRAELI 

censorship of morals which cramped, nay, imprisoned self- 
developing virtue, confounded holiness with austerity, and 
furnished the best argument for a " national Church." 

Milton, who tempered the Puritanic fire with the Renais- 
sance light, who, in his youth, was a worshipper of the 
subdued loveliness of the Church and "her dim, religious 
light," came to regard our national Church as merely, in his 
own phrase, " an anti-papal schism." Like Cromwell, he 
longed to destroy it. 

" It is a rule and principle," he urges,^ " worthy to be 
known by Christians, that no Scripture, no, nor so much as any 
ancient creed, binds our faith or our obedience to any Church 
whatsoever denominated by a particular name ; far less if it 
be distinguished by a several government from that which is 
indeed Catholic. ... It were an injury to condemn the papist 
of absurdity and contradiction for adhering to his Catholic 
Romish religion, if we, for the pleasure of a king and his 
public considerations, shall adhere to a Catholic English." 
Milton only wanted republican instead of monarchical forms. 
Politics were still the setting of religion. He was even more 
inconsistent. He deprecated any discipline by the State, 
although his Church was a political Church, and although 
Cromwell's purposes are contradicted by Milton's very de- 
precation." " If we think " — who can forget this fine passage 
from his " Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing " ? — 
" if we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, 
we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is 
delightful to men. No music must be set or sung but what is 
grave and Doric. ... I hate a pupil-teacher ; I endure not 
an instructor that comes to me under the wardship of an 
overseeing fist." How did Milton relish the Independents as 
"pupil teachers," or the "overseeing fist" of the Fifth-Monarchy 
men, or the wardship of the Reign of Saints ? Milton wants 
neither the Church as a Polity, nor the State as a Church. 
Not staying to inquire what fits the genius of England and 
her national traditions and customs, he seeks a Theocracy 
which is untheocratic, and a national republic doomed to fall 
when the perfect ruler is removed. 

* Answer to " Eikon Basilike." 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 151 

"When," he indignantly exclaims^ — "when God shakes a 
kingdom with strong and healthful commotions to a general 
reforming, it is not untrue that many sectaries and false 
teachers are then busiest in seducing, but yet more true is it 
that God then raises to His own work men of rare abilities and 
more than common industry, not only to look back and revise 
what hath been taught heretofore, but to gain further and to 
go on some new enlightened steps in the discovery of truth." 
So, then, a reformed commonwealth, and no visible Church 
are Milton's ideals. 

"The Parliament of England," he protests, had turned 
" regal bondage into a free commonwealth." " All Protes- 
tants," he proceeds, " hold that Christ in His Church hath left 
no vicegerent of his power, but Himself without deputy is 
the only head thereof, governing it from heaven." So far 
Milton announces pure Theocracy ; but the leaven of his 
classical republicanism is disclosed in the next sentence : he 
cannot divorce religion from politics. " How, then, can any 
Christian man derive his kingship from Christ ? I doubt not 
but all ingenuous and knowing men will easily agree with me 
that a free commonwealth, without a single person or House of 
Lords, is by far the best Government, if it can be had." And 
then he propounds grand councils of a perpetual senate, safe- 
guarded against " any dogeship of Venice," ^ as the means to 
save the State. "The whole freedom of man," he says, 
" consists either in spiritual or civil liberty." No rule for the 
first is admitted by him but the Scriptures ; for the second he 
takes the Dutch model of the United Provinces. But he 
neglects to consider how liberty can be settled without order, 
or order without discipline, or discipline without authority, or 
authority without creed. 

Even the loftiest Puritan ideal of Theocracy, therefore, was 
no less political than that of the Church. 

A very few years witnessed the complete breakdown of a 
system which sought to blend the early Latin and the early 
Semitic ideals together in unnatural alliance, and disregarded 
the native bias of Great Britain. 

^ " The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Commonwealth." 
2 Here we find an early beginning of " the Venetian oligarchy." 



152 DISRAELI 

The ensuing reaction rendered the English Church more 
political than ever. She was split into contending partisan- 
ship for contending dynasties. She repudiated James the 
Second, but not the Stuarts. Under William of Orange 
latitudinarianism, even her latitudinarianism, was militant. 
But under the two first Georges she grew torpid and 
time-serving. The rash and rabid Sunderland, the astute 
Walpole, parodied the old Miltonic ideals in their zeal for 
indififerentism, and in self-defence the Church tended tem- 
porarily to seem the mere stipendiary of the State, like an 
excise officer. But Wesley in England, and Whitefield both 
here and in America, re-aroused the Church to the higher 
and holier ideals of a natio7ial Theocracy. Some century 
later the Tractarian movement spurred her energies afresh, 
and they have since been once more quickened in the battle 
with mechanical materialism. 

But all along it has been a sheer necessity in England — 
a necessity for spiritual as well as civil freedom — that the 
State should lend its earthly sanction of order to the Church. 
A national Church so uncontrolled is impossible in England, 
where politics tinge every form of aspiration. For inter- 
national Theocracy, for that "millenary year" which is the 
magnificent ideal of Romanism, the times are unripe. It 
must remain a remote goal so long as the competitive egoism 
of nations, transfiguring the baser egotism of individuals and 
of mere races, is paramount. 

The Church State has been unrealisable. England alone 
has realised the State Church. The former has been impos- 
sible in the West, owing to the Aryan genius for State 
development, and especially to the national instinct of the 
Anglo-Saxon family. With the British spirit a cosmopolitan 
religion is incompatible. No nation ambitious of being a 
world-power can revert to Theocracy. It is not feasible 
under such conditions. 

The latter, however, the Anglican Church, has reconciled 
these two concepts of opposite origins, the Oriental idea of a 
" Church," and the Occidental idea of the State. For it is 
not only a religious, but a national and a social tradition. 

This, I take it, was Disraeli's attitude. By temperament 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 153 

he was theocratic. He believed in the original spirituality of 
his race ; but he also believed in the great destiny of the 
nation to which he belonged, and in her Church he descried 
the naturalised power of Semitic ideas, the only form in 
which they could become nationally operative, the sole 
political means in a political country of sanctifying the 
secular. "The Church," he once said, "is one of the few 
great things left." The Church ever found him a wise and 
enthusiastic supporter. The fact is, as he put it in a speech 
of i860, "the Church is a part of England." Nor would he 
ever allow that mere differences of opinion negatived her 
comprehensiveness. She was still Anglican. What he 
recoiled from was the hard-and-fast narrowness of Puritanism, 
the fiercer fanaticisms of which, he always maintained, had 
undone Ireland. Sectarianism is not strength, for strength 
resides in national discipline. He regarded a "national 
Church " as the best pledge for religious liberty to even those 
outside her communion, as a national refuge from bigotry 
and a national rampart against priestcraft. 

The Church's " nationality " is proved even by the peculiar 
character of her property. It is territorial. It is (as he 
emphasised in a speech of 1862) "... so distributed through- 
out the country, that it makes that Church, from the very 
nature of its tenure, a national Church ; and the power of 
the Church of England does not depend merely on the 
amount of property it possesses, but in a very great degree 
on the character and kind of that property. Then I say 
that the Church, deprived of its status, would become merely 
an episcopal sect in this country. And in time, it is not 
impossible it might become an insignificant one. But that 
is not the whole, nor, perhaps, even the greatest evil, that 
might arise from the dissolution of the connection between 
Church and State, because in the present age the art of 
government becomes every day more difficult, and no 
Government will allow a principle so powerful as the religious 
principle to be divorced from the influences by which it 
regulates the affairs of a country. What would happen } . . . 
The State of England would take care, after the Church was 
spoiled, to enlist in its service what are called the ministers 



154 DISRAELI 

of all religions. They would be salaried by the State, and 
the consequences of the dissolution of the alliance between 
Church and State would be one equally disastrous to the 
Churchman and to the Nonconformist. It would place the 
ministers of all spiritual influences under the control of 
the civil power, and it would in reality effect a revolution in 
the national character. ..." 

De Tocqueville has proved that the French clergy were 
the staunchest upholders of civil liberty before the Revolution ; 
but he has also acutely shown that the Roman priest- 
hood, devoid of domestic ties, looks to the Church as its sole 
fatherland, unless it can itself become a proprietor of the soil. 
The French Revolution disempowered it for that purpose, 
and evicted it from its heritage. The English clergy, on the 
other hand, are linked to civil life both by the land and the 
home. Contrast for one moment the landscape of a French 
village with that of an English, and the difference becomes 
typified. In the one the church stands aloof and dominates 
the hamlet. In the other it nestles among the cottages, and 
helps the daily life around it. 

What was present to Disraeli's mind was not only that, in 
such a case, the ancient landmarks of parish life, the ancient 
trusts of education, the ancient equality of social intercourse 
between clergy and laity, the ancient duties and intimacies, 
the ancient openness to the poorest of career in the Church 
and of residence on the land, would be swept away ; but that, 
as he expressed it when discussing the " Cowper-Temple 
Amendment" in 1870, "you will not entrust the priest or 
the presbyter with the privilege of expounding the Holy 
Scriptures . . . but for that ptt-rpose yoit are inventing and 
establishing a 7iew sacerdotal class.'' " My idea of sacerdotal 
despotism," he said in 1863, "is this, that a minister of the 
Church of England, who is appointed to expound doctrine, 
should deem that he has a right to invent doctrine. That 
... is the sacerdotal despotism I fear. . . ." The State 
would suffer ; and it would suffer doubly. Not only would 
religion cease to be an official element of order, but the 
ministers of religion might be unduly strengthened in civil 
affairs — might be over-politicised. " Whether that is a result 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 155 

to be desired," he remarked ten years afterwards, "is a 
grave question for all men. For my own part, I am bound 
to say that I doubt whether it would be favourable to the 
cause of civil and religious liberty." 

In his novels he emphasises his belief that society is 
inconceivable without religion, and that "without a Church 
there can be no true religion, because otherwise you have no 
security for the truth," although he also distinguishes between 
differing " orthodoxies " and real religion. At the same time, 
the Church as a polity must have dogmas — " No Church, no 
creed" — "no dogmas, no deans, Mr. Dean." The human 
craving, the passionate instinct for religion, he ever based — 
from the date of Contarini Fleming and Alroy to that of 
Coningsby and Tancred, and from that of Tanc7'ed to that of 
Lothair — on the fact that " man requires that there shall be 
direct relations between the created and the Creator, and that 
in those relations he should find a solution of the perplexities of 
existence^ — "The brain that teems with illimitable thought 
will never recognise as his Creator any power of nature, how- 
ever irresistible, that is not gifted with consciousness. . . . 
The Church comes forward, and without equivocation offers 
to establish direct relations between God and man. Philo- 
sophy denies its title and disputes its power. Why } Because 
they are founded on the supernatural. What is the super- 
natural } Can there be anything more miraculous than the 
existence of man and the world ? Anything more literally 
supernatural than the origin of things ? The Church explains 
what no one else pretends to explain, and which every one 
agrees it is of first moment should be made clear." 

Of the two passions which moved Disraeli, the one for 
mastery, the other for the mysterious, the last was perhaps 
the strongest. The mysteries that fascinated him were real, 
and did not render him a mystic, still less a quietist. It is a 
mistake so to regard him. His strength alike and his weak- 
ness resided in the practical energy of his imagination. The 
whole of existence was for him a standing miracle. " Con- 
tarini " finds his fate by a vision in a church ; " Venetia " receives 
a miraculous answer to her prayer of agony. He delights to 
depict, even in the short biography of his father, providential 



156 DISRAELI 

coincidences. What is deemed bizarre in his works, is 
really the sense of magic wonder in all we experience. 
His irony, too, contrasting show with substance and words 
with things, works by paradox.^ That man is a spirit on 
earth was his firm conviction. We find it accentuated from 
his earliest utterances to his latest. "... There are some 
things I know," said the Syrian in Lothair, according with 
the Syrian in Tancred, " and some things I believe. I know 
that I have a soul, and I believe that it is immortal. . . ."^ 
The riddle of life is not to be solved by theories, however 
true or ingenious of the processes of development, still less 
by the fashionable "prattle of protoplasm," or the glib 
triflers with their "We once had fins, we shall have wings." 
He was quite sincere and consistent in his famous "Ape or 
Angel" dilemma. He believed, both passionately and dis- 
passionately, that man was divine. Science confesses that its 
discoveries are merely of recurrent facts called laws ; it does 
not profess to account for them. 

" Science may prove the insignificance of this globe in the 
scale of creation," said the stranger, "but it cannot prove 
the insignificance of man. What is the earth compared with 
the sun ? A mole-hill by a mountain ; yet the inhabitants 
of this earth can discover the elements of which the great 
orb exists, and will probably, ere long, ascertain all the con- 
ditions of its being. Nay, the human mind can penetrate 
far beyond the sun. There is no relation, therefore, between 
the faculties of man and the scale in creation of the planet 
which he inhabits. . . . But there are people now who tell 
you there never was any creation, and therefore there never 
could have been a creator." — " And which is now advanced 
with the confidence of novelty," said the Syrian, " though all 
of it has been urged, and vainly urged, thousands of years 
ago. There must be design, or all we see would be without 
sense, and I do not believe in the unmeaning. As for the 

^ These paradoxes, like " Sidonia's," have been constantly proved true. 
I may mention a fantastic description of a sculptured Eastern cavern, 
which recent discovery has confirmed. 

2 Cf. Vzvz'an Grey. This idea is derived from Bolingbroke's philo- 
sophical works. 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 157 

natural forces to which all creation is now attributed, we know 
that they are unconscious, while consciousness is as inevitable 
a portion of our existence as the eye or the hand. The con- 
scious cannot be derived from the unconscious. Man is 
divine. ... Is it more unphilosophical to believe in a personal 
God omnipotent and omniscient, than in natural forces un- 
conscious and irresistible ? Is _ it unphilosophical to com- 
bine power with intelligence } Goethe, a Spinozist who did 
not believe in Spinoza, said he could bring his mind to the 
conception that in the centre of space we might meet with a 
monad of pure intelligence. Is that more philosophical than 
the truth first revealed to man amid these everlasting hills," 
said the Syrian, "that God made man in His own image ?" 
..." It is the charter of the nobility of man . . . one of the 
divine dogmas revealed in this land ; not the invention of 
councils, not one of which was held on this sacred soil ; con- 
fused assemblies first got together by the Greeks, and then 
by barbarous nations in barbarous times." — "Yet the 
divine land no longer tells us divine things," said " Lothair." 
"It may, or may not, have fulfilled its destiny," said the 
Syrian. " ' In my Father's house are many mansions,' and 
by the various families of nations the designs of the Creator 
are accomplished. God works by races,^ and one was 
appointed in due season, and after many developments, to 
reveal and expound in this land the spiritual nature of 
man. . . ." 

This quotation may suffice, though many others, even from 
the biography of Lord George Bentinck, might have been 
offered. These ideas are perhaps best summarised in the 
Preface to Lothair. Disraeli really believed in the sacredness 

^ A very favourite idea of Disraeli's, and the source of his disbelief in 
any " equality of man." Cf. " All is race " in Coningsby, and the passage 
already quoted in my second chapter from Contarint Fleming. So 
again in the Preface to Lothair, " One of the consequences of the Divine 
government of this world, which has ordained that the sacred purposes 
should be effected by the instrumentality of various human races, must 
be occasionally a jealous discontent with the revelation entrusted to a 
particular family. . . . The documents will yet bear a greater amount 
both of erudition and examination than they have received ; but the 
Word of God is eternal, and will survive the spheres." 



158 DISRAELI 

of the Syrian soil and air, the peculiar genius of the Semite 
for communion with God, as of the Hellene for communion 
with nature and origination of art ; in the special religious 
revelation vouchsafed to Semites alone and consummated 
in Christianity, which he ever held was the fulfilment of 
Judaism. The dogma of the Atonement he received literally. 
It was a divine mystery enacted by a prince of Israel. Dis- 
raeli's sense of mystery was, let me repeat, literal, and 
never explained through emblems. There was nothing of 
Gothic symbolism in his nature. From these convictions 
flowed his sanguine confidence in himself and his mission ; 
in destiny, which he has himself said may be but the 
exertion of our own will. From these flowed his sympathy 
with the heroic, his turn for the adventurous ; his disrelish, 
too, of modern rationalism, modern materialism,^ and even 
of modern metaphysics.^ From these flowed his faith in 
the revelations of conscience — " I worship in a Church where 
I believe God dwells, and dwells for my guidance and my 
good ; my conscience ; " ^ in a word, from these flowed his 
bias towards a natural Theocracy. But, as I have already 
said, he recognised that the English Church had alone, as the 
depository of these racial ideas, attuned them to the national 
refrain of England, embodied them in living Western flesh. 
Just as for him Government meant organised authority, and 
Party organised opinion, so the Church meant organised 
belief ; nor did he ever cease to point out that if the national 
Church were disestablished, if that form of Protestant religion, 

^ " . . . What is styled Materialism is in the ascendant. To those 
who believe that an Atheistical society, though it may be polished and 
amiable, involves the seeds of anarchy, the prospect is full of gloom." 

2 " . . . Let us at length discover that no society can long subsist that 
is based upon metaphysical absurdities. . . . Before me is a famous 
treatise on human nature by a Professor of Konigsberg. No one has 
more profoundly meditated on the attributes of his subject. It is evident 
that in the deep study of his own intelHgence he has discovered a noble 
method of expounding that of others. Yet when I close his volumes, 
can I conceal from myself that all this time I have been studying a 
treatise upon the nature — not of man, but of a German ? ^''—Contarini 
Fleming. 

3 The hackneyed mot of " Sensible men never tell " is derived from 
Voltaire. 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 159 

resting on popular sympathies and popular privileges, which 
had grown with the growth of England and had leavened her 
life, her civil society, her public education, and even her pas- 
times, were divorced from the principle of authority, not only 
might the competition of sects cause a bigoted intolerance, 
but the State itself would certainly be the loser. 

I will choose another most pertinent passage from his 
speech on the Irish Church Bill, delivered in March, 1869. 
He had discussed " disendowment," and he opposed it with all 
his might, as the plunder of the Church in English history 
had always gone into the coffers of the land, although it was 
a trust for the poor. 

" Now, sir," he continued, with regard to disestablishment, 
" I myself am much opposed to it, because I am in favour 
of what is called the union between Church and State. 
What I understand by the union of Church and State is 
an arrangement which renders the State religious by investing 
authority with the highest sanctions that can influence the 
sentiments, the convictions, and consequently the conduct of 
the subject ; while, on the other hand, that union renders the 
Church — using that epithet in its noblest and purest sense 
— political. That is to say, it blends civil authority with 
ecclesiastical influence ; it defines and defends the rights of 
the laity, and prevents the Church from subsiding into a 
sacerdotal corporation. If you divest the State of this con- 
nection, it appears to me that you necessarily reduce both the 
quantity and the quality of its duties. The State will still be 
the protector of our persons and our property, and no doubt 
these are most important duties for the State to perform. 
But there are duties in a community which rather excite a 
spirit of criticism than a sentiment of enthusiasm and venera- 
tion. All, or most of the higher functions of Government — 
take education, for example, the formation of the character 
of the people, and consequently the guidance of their future 
conduct — depart from the State and become the appanage 
of religious societies, of the religious organisations of the 
country — you may call them the various Churches, if you 
please — when they are established on what are called 
independent principles." 



i6o DISRAELI 

After welcoming the fact of a religious revival, he next 
continues : — 

" When we have to decide whether we can dissociate the 
principle of religion from the State, it is well to remember 
that we are asked to relinquish an influence that is universal. 
We hear in these days a great deal of philosophy. Now, it 
is my happiness in life to be acquainted with eminent philo- 
sophers. They all agree in one thing. They will all tell you 
that, however brilliant may be the discoveries of physical 
science, however marvellous those demonstrations which 
attempt to penetrate the mysteries of the human mind, won- 
derful as may be these discoveries, greatly as they have con- 
tributed to the comfort and convenience of man, or confirmed 
his consciousness of the nobility of his nature — yet all those 
great philosophers agree in one thing — that in their investiga- 
tions there is an inevitable term where they meet the in- 
soluble, where all the most transcendent powers of intellect 
dissipate and disappear.^ There commences the religious 

^ In the Preface to Lothair he says : — " The sceptical efforts of the 
discoveries of science, and the uneasy feeling that they cannot co-exist 
with our old religious convictions, have their origin in the conviction that 
the general body who have suddenly become conscious of these physical 
truths are not so well acquainted as is desirable with the past history of 
man. Astonished by their unprepared emergence from ignorance to a 
certain degree of information, their amazed intelligence takes refuge in the 
theory of what is conveniently called Progress, and every step in scientific 
discovery seems further to remove them from the path of primseval 
inspiration. But there is no fallacy so flagrant as to suppose that the 
modern ages have the peculiar privilege of scientific discovery, or that 
they are distinguished as the epochs of the most illustrious inventions. 
No one for a moment can pretend that printing is so great a discovery as 
writing, or algebra as language. What are the most brilliant of our 
chemical discoveries compared with the invention of fire and the metals ? 
It is a vulgar belief that our astronomical knowledge dates only from the 
recent century, when it was rescued from the monks who imprisoned 
GaUleo. But Hipparchus, who lived before our Divine Master . . . 
discovered the precession of the equinoxes ; and Copernicus . . . avows 
himself as only the champion of Pythagoras. . . . Even the most modish 
schemes of the day on the origin of things . . . will be found mainly to 
rest on the atom of Epicurus and the monad of Thales. Scientific, like 
spiritual truth, has ever from the beginning been descending from heaven 
to man. ..." So, too, in a speech of 1861, dealing both with science 
and the higher criticism, " Epicurus was, I apprehend, as great a man as 
Hegel ; but it was not Epicurus who subverted the religion of Olympus." 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY i6i 

principle. It is universal, and it will assert its universal 
influence in the government of men. Now, I put this case 
before the House. We are asked to commence a great 
change. . . . When, therefore, we are called to the considera- 
tion of these circumstances, it is absolutely necessary that 
we should contemplate the possibility of our establishing a 
society in which there may be two powers, the political and 
the religious, and the religious may be the stronger.^ Now I 
will take this case. Under ordinary circumstances, a Govern- 
ment performing those duties of police, to which it will be 
limited when the system has perfectly developed, the first 
step to which we are called upon to take to-night — such a 
Government, under ordinary circumstances, will be treated 
with decent respect. But a great public question, such as 
has before occurred in this country, and as must periodically 
occur in free and active communities — a great public question 
arises, which touches the very fundamental principles of our 
domestic tranquillity, or even the existence of the Empire ; 
but the Government of the country, and the religious organi- 
sations of the country, take different views, and entertain 
different opinions on that subject. In all probability the 
Government of the country will be right. The Government 
in its secret councils is calm and impartial, is in possession of 
ample and accurate information, views every issue before it 
in reference to the interests of all classes, and takes, therefore, 
what is popularly called a comprehensive view. The religious 
organisation of the country acts in quite a different manner. 
It is not calm ; it is not impartial ; it is sincere, it is fervid, 
it is enthusiastic. Its information is limited and prejudiced. 
It does not view the question of the day in reference to the 
interests of all classes. It looks upon the question as some- 
thing of so much importance — as something of such trans- 
cendent interest, not only for the earthly, but even for the 
future welfare of all her Majesty's subjects — that it will allow 
no consideration to divert its mind and energy from the 
accomplishment of its object. It, therefore, necessarily takes 
what is commonly called a contracted view. But who can 
doubt what will be the result, when on a question which enlists 
* Probably always in England. In France the reverse is happening. 



i62 DISRAELI 

and excites all the religious passions of the nation, the zeal of 
enthusiasm advocates one policy, and the calmness of philosophers 
and the experience of statesmen recommend another. The 
Government might he right, hut the Government would not be 
able to enforce its policy, and the question might be decided in 
a way that might disturb a country or even destroy an empire. 
I know, sir, it may be said that though there may be some 
truth in this view abstractedly considered, yet it does not 
apply to the country in which we live, because ... we enjoy 
religious freedom . . . and because only a portion of her 
Majesty's subjects are in communion with the National 
Church. I draw a very different conclusion to that which I 
have supposed as the objection. . . . It is because there is an 
Established Church that we have achieved religious liberty and 
enjoy religious toleration ; and without the union of the Church 
with the State, I do not see what security there would he either 
for religious liberty or toleration. No error could be greater 
than to suppose that the advantage of the Established Church 
is limited to those who are in communion with it. Take the 
case of the Roman Catholic priest. He will refuse — and in 
doing so he is quite justified, and is indeed bound to do so — 
he will, I say, refuse to perform the offices of the Church to 
any one not in communion with it. The same with the 
Dissenters, It is quite possible — it has happened, and might 
happen very frequently — that a Roman Catholic may be 
excommunicated by his Church, or a sectarian may be 
denounced and expelled by his congregation ; but if that 
happens in this country, the individual in question who has 
been thus excommunicated, denounced, or expelled, is not a 
forlorn being. There is the Church, of which the Sovereign 
is the head, which does not acknowledge the principle of 
Dissent, and which does not refuse to that individual those 
religious rites which are his privilege and consolation. . . . 
Now, I cannot believe that the disendowment of the Church 
of England could occur without very great disturbances. . . . 
England cannot afford revolution. England has had her revolu- 
tions. It is indeed because she had revolutions about two 
hundred years ago, before other nations had their revolutions, 
that she gained her great start in wealth and empire. Now, 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 163 

sir, what have we gained by these revolutions ? A period 
of nearly two hundred years of great serenity and the secured 
stability of the State. I attribute these happy characteristics 
of our history to the circumstance, that in this interval we 
did solve two of the finest and profoundest political problems. 
We accomplished complete personal, and, in time, complete 
political liberty, and combined them with order. We achieved 
complete religious liberty, and we united it with a national 
faith. These two immense exploits have won for this country 
regulated freedom and temperate religion. . . . Speaking now 
not as a partisan, I believe the Tory party, however it may 
at times have erred, has always been the friend of local 
government, and that the instinct of the nation made it feel 
that on local government political freedom depended^ ^ 

"It is said," he remarked three years afterwards, after 
commenting on the historical union between Church and 
State — "two originally independent powers," and the fact 
that their alliance has prevented the spiritual power from 
"usurping upon the civil and establishing a sacerdotal 
society," as well as the civil power from invading " the rights 
of the spiritual," and from degrading its ministers into 
" salaried instruments of the Government." — " It is said," he 
continued, " that the existence of Nonconformity proves that 
the Church is a failure. I draw from these premises an 
exactly contrary conclusion ; and I maintain that to have 
secured a national profession of faith with the unlimited 
enjoyment of private judgment in matters spiritual is . . . one 
of the triumphs of civilisation." Nonconformity he considered 
a misfortune, though it was a symptom of national freedom. 
With Nonconformists, however, he sympathised. It was with 
indifference that he warred. 

Let me illustrate these points. In an earlier speech he 

» This idea is, among other speeches, worked out in that deHvered at 
Amersham, December 4, i860, where he says : "The parish is one of 
the strongest securities for local government, and on local government 
mainly depends our political Hberty." He points out that the Church is 
not oligarchical, and does not claim those exclusive privileges which the 
Nonconformists often do. It is national in its comprehensive ties with 
the country and its inclusiveness. The abolition of the parish system 
would alone prove a national and social upheaval. 



i64 DISRAELI 

addresses himself to prove that the Church is none the less 
truly national because millions of the nation are not in com- 
munion with it ; and he analyses Nonconformity. 

" Now, the history of English Dissent will always be a 
memorable chapter in the history of the country. It displays 
many of those virtues for which the English character is 
distinguished — earnestness, courage, devotion, conscience. But 
one thing is quite clear, that in the present day the causes 
which originally created Dissent no longer exist ; while — which 
is of still more importance — there are now causes in existence 
opposed to the spread of Dissent. I will not refer to the fact 
that many — I believe the great majority — of the families of the 
descendants of the original Puritans and Presbyterians have 
merged in the Church of England itself ; but no man can any 
longer conceal from himself that the tendency of this age is 
not that all creeds and Churches and consistories should 
combine — I do not say that, mind — but I do say that it is 
that they should cease hereafter from any internecine hos- 
tility ; . . . and therefore, so far as the spread of . . . mere 
sincere religious Dissent is concerned, I hold that it is of a 
very limited character, and there is nothing in the existence 
of it which should prevent the Church of England from as- 
serting her nationality. For observe, the same difficulties 
that are experienced by the Church are also experienced by 
the Dissenters, without the advantage which the Church 
possesses in her discipline, learning, and traditions." 

Part of these " difficulties " he considered in the later 
speech, above cited, where he holds that the existence of 
parties in the Church is a sign of vigour ; but the other 
part, the growth of indifferentism among millions of the 
populace, he considers here, and he considers it as affording 
a great field for the Church if it be true to its great traditions 
and answers to the temper of the times and to the call of the 
summons. "... If, indeed, the Church of England were in 
the same state as the pagan religion was in the time of Con- 
stantine ; if her altars were paling before the Divine splendour 
of inspired shrines, it might be well indeed for the Church 
and its ministers to consider the course that they should 
pursue ; but nothing of the kind is the case. With the 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 165 

indifferentists you are dealing with millions of a people the 
most enthusiastic, though not the most excitable, in the 
world. And what awakes their enthusiasm ? 

"... The notes on the gamut of tJieir feeling are few ^ hut 
they are deep. Industry, Liberty, Religion, form the solemn 
scale. Industry, Liberty, Religion — that is the history of 
England!' He predicts a feeling of exaltation for religion 
similar to those enthusiasms for freedom and toil which have 
inspired the nation in recent periods, and he harps on the 
opportunity for a Church with a tradition of " the beauty of 
holiness." "What a field for a corporation which is not 
merely a Church, but . . . the Church of England ; blending 
with a divine instruction the sentiment of patriotism, and 
announcing herself as the Church of the country ; " which 
may realise its nationality by increasing her hold on the 
education ^ of the people, " though it is possible there may be 
fresh assaults and attacks upon the machinery by which the 
State has assisted the Church in that great effort ; " by ex- 
tending the Episcopate (which has happened) ; by developing 
the lay element in the administration of her temporal affairs ; 
by fulfilling the right of visitation both by priest and 
parishioner, and maintaining those parochial privileges which 
are still inviolate both in town and country ; by remedying 
the gross inequality of stipend (which remains to be done) ; 
by, so far as possible, relying on the Church itself, and not 
resorting to the Legislature. 

With respect to indifferentism among the more enlightened 
classes, it is " agnosticism," partly due to the scientific spirit 
on which I have touched ; partly to that " higher criticism " 
which Germany originated, and which, it is clear, can only 
modify the views of an educated few. With the mild rational- 
ism of " Essays and Reviews," Disraeli dealt characteristically. 
He found them " at the best a second-hand medley of contra- 
dictory and discordant theories." Thirty years earlier he had 
satirised those devout Christians who do not believe in Chris- 
tianity. As in the march of Science he perceived nothing new, 
and held that it interpreted the imagery without sapping the 

^ This policy was pressed by Peel in the early 'forties, and led to the 
fine work of the National Schools. 



1 66 DISRAELI 

foundations of belief, so with regard to the " Teutonic rebellion " 
against inspiration, he saw only repeated in another form, and 
with no more ability, the Celtic " insurrection " which dis- 
tinguished the eighteenth century: both had their uses. 
" Man brings to the study of oracles more learning and more 
criticism than of yore ; and it is well that it should be so." 
Nay, the very development of the German theological school 
proves its ephemeral character. 

"About a century ago" (he observed in 1861) "German 
theology, which was mystical, became by the law of reactions 
critical. There gradually arose a school of philosophical 
theologians which introduced a new system for the interpre- 
tation of Scripture. Accepting the sacred narrative without 
cavil, they explained all the supernatural incidents by 
natural causes. This system in time was called Rationalism. 
. . . But where now is German Rationalism, and what are its 
results ? They are erased from the intellectual tablets of 
living opinion. A new school of German theology then 
arose, which, with profound learning and in exorable logic, 
proved that Rationalism was irrational, and successfully sub- 
stituted for it a new scheme of scriptural interpretation called 
the mythical.^ But if the mythical theologians triumphantly 
demonstrated . . . that Rationalism was irrational, so the 
mythical system itself has already become a myth ; and its 
most distinguished votaries, in that spirit of progress which, 
as we are told, is the characteristic of the nineteenth century, 
and which generally brings us back to old ideas, have now 
found an invincible solution of the mysteries of human exist- 
ence in a revival of Pagan pantheism." 

This he defined elsewhere as " Atheism in domino." Since 
Disraeli's death the German school has made further strides. 
There has been a brisk export of fresh theories "made in 
Germany." We are now told that the Old Testament is 
Babylonian, and that the New springs out of Aryan ideas ; 
and side by side with this tour-de-force of paradox, an orgy of 
anarchical hysteria threatens the sanctions of authority, the 
secular as well as the spiritual. Disraeli would probably meet 
it by what he retorted in the 'sixties, that when the periodical 
^ That of Strauss. 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 167 

deluge subsides, the ark is seen resting at the summit of the 
mountain. 

But if education was to be secularised, might not the ark 
be chopped up for firewood ? Education was a problem that, 
in its private and public aspects, engrossed Disraeli from his 
youth. In the second of two election addresses at High 
Wycombe in the memorable year 1832 he had announced: 
"... By repealing the taxes upon knowledge, I would throw 
the education of the people into the hands of the philosophic 
student, instead of the ignorant adventurer." He believed 
that its current principles were constantly wrong — that words 
were taught instead of ideas, and grammar studied instead of 
character; and he was also a great advocate of the wisdom 
of steeping the youth of a nation in national literature. It 
was a keen disappointment to him that he was deprived of 
the occasion of settling — partially, at any rate — the problem 
of national education, and he considered that the less it was 
fettered by direct State interference and the more it was 
helped by State support, the better. He was persuaded that 
any national system ought to be religious. For the Church's 
original training of the people, for her alliance with the 
Universities, too, he had the keenest admiration. 

"Nothing is more surprising to me," he urged in 1872, 
" than . . . that in the nineteenth century the charge against 
the Church of England should be that Churchmen, and 
especially the clergy, had educated the people. ... I think 
the greatest distinction of the clergy is the admirable manner 
in which they have devoted their lives and fortunes to this 
greatest of national objects." ^ 

It may not be generally remembered that only two years 
after Disraeli entered the House of Commons he delivered 
himself of a remarkable speech in this connection. He was 
opposed, he said, at that time to a strictly State system, for 
he was opposed to " paternal government, which stamped out 
the sense of independence in man, and caused him to rely 

* In the Croker Papers will be found a masterly letter from Sir 
Robert Peel on the importance of the Church rising to her educational 
opportunities. It was Peel's foresight that produced the National Schools. 
Feel, though latitudinarian, was a Church statesman. 



1 68 DISRAELI 

upon others." Society should be strong, and the State weak ; 
order should not be disturbed by national injustice, nor liberty 
by popular outcry. " It is always the State and never Society — 
always machinery and never sympathy T But though he did not 
change the principles of his outlook, he came by experience 
very materially to change his view of the machinery by which 
they were to be applied. He detested the interferences of 
centralisation ; but a doubled population and the overgrowth 
of cities rendered State measures imperative, and their 
absence a disgrace. In his Edinburgh speech, twenty-eight 
years later, he thus handled this national need : "... Ever 
since I have been in public life I have done everything I 
possibly could to promote the cause of the education of the 
people generally. I have done so because I always felt that 
with the limited population of this United Kingdom, com- 
pared with the great imperial position which it occupies with 
reference to other nations, it is not only our duty, but . . . 
an absolute necessity, that we should sttidy to make every man 
the most effective being that education can possibly constitute 
him. In the old wars there used to be a story that one 
Englishman could beat three members of some other nation. 
But / think if we want to maintain our power, we ought to 
make one Englishman equal really in the business of life to 
three other men that any other nation can furnish, I do not 
see otherwise how ... we can fulfil the great destiny that I 
believe awaits us, and the great position we occupy. 

It will be noticed that he forecasts the practical and 
technical requirements which, at a period of comparative com- 
mercial decline, we are only now beginning to take to heart. 

"Therefore," he resumed, "so far as I am concerned, 
whether it be a far greater advanced system of primary educa- 
tion—whether it be that system of competitive examination 
which I have ever supported, though I am not unconscious 
of some pedantry with which it is associated — or whatever 
may be the circumstances, I shall ever be its supporter." 

He kept his word. Leading the Opposition in iS/o, he 
supported Mr. Forster's great measure, though he strongly 
opposed the Cowper-Temple Amendment — one which has 
undoubtedly kept much religious acrimony alive. His speech 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 169 

on these clauses can still be studied with advantage. In 
1854, Lord John Russell introduced his bill for the " good 
government of the University of Oxford." Here, again, 
Disraeli objected to undue Government interference. He 
thought that this " great seat of learning " should deal with 
these problems itself independently, and in the spirit of the 
age. It was designed to create professors on the Prussian 
model. Disraeli showed that in Prussia there was then small 
"sphere for the genius, the intellect, the talent, and the 
energy of Germany, except in the professorial chair." There 
were not then great opportunities for a public career in 
Germany. "In this country you may increase the salaries as 
you please ; but to suppose that you can produce a class of 
men like the German professors is chimerical. . . . We are a 
nation of action, and you may depend upon it that, however 
you may increase the rewards of professors . . . ambition in 
England will look to public life. . . . You will not be able, 
however you think you may, to lay your hand upon twenty- 
five or thirty professors suddenly, capable of effecting a great 
influence on the youth of England. You cannot get these 
men at once. It will be slowly, with great difficulty, by 
fostering and cultivating your resources, that you will be able 
to produce one of these great professors — a man able to 
influence the public opinion of the University. Whether, then, 
you look to the great change which you propose with respect 
to these private halls, which is in fact a revolution of the 
collegiate system ; or whether you look to the great alteration 
you contemplate by the revival of the professorial instead of the 
tutorial system — on both points you will meet, I think, with dis- 
appointment. ... If I were asked, 'Would you have Oxford, 
with its self-government, freedom, independence, but yet with 
its anomalies and imperfections ; or would you have the Uni- 
versity free from those anomalies and imperfections and under 
control of the Government?' I would say, 'Give me Oxford 
free and independent, with its anomalies and imperfections.' " ^ 

' I may add that what Disraeli resented in Gladstone's thwarted 
proposals for his Catholic University scheme was that it sought to exclude 
theology and philosophy — an exception unworthy of any " Universitas 
rerum," and deeply repugnant to the Catholics. 



I70 DISRAELI 

In the discipline of the Church itself also Disraeli 
^eventually found it imperative for the State to interfere. With 
extreme Ritualism, with amateur popery in an alien camp, 
effetely and sometimes treacherously practised, till the in- 
subordination of a few, who were not in any sense strong 
men or leaders, began to infect the many, Disraeli could not 
sympathise. The Mass of the Roman Church as a solemn 
act he could reverence, but not the " masquerade " of 
amateur ultramontanes. With the High Anglicans, with the 
Tractarians, he in many respects sympathised profoundly. 
Their movements were those of noble aspiration and high 
endeavour. But most of the ultra-Ritualists were of wholly 
different calibre. Their attitude he typified most humorously 
in Lothair, and in the person of the "Reverend Dionysius 
Smylie," who was wont to observe, " Rome will come to w^." 
Moreover, the Church had passed rapidly through varying 
vicissitudes. In the late 'thirties and early 'forties there had 
been a signal revival ; but the secession of Newman, " apolo- 
gised for but never explained," had proved a blow under 
which "the Church still reels." She lost a great, a generous, 
a necessary leader, when a leader was her need. " If," Dis- 
raeli wrote in 1870, "a quarter of a century ago, there had 
arisen a Churchman equal to the occasion, the position of 
ecclesiastical affairs in this country would have been very 
different from that which they now occupy. But these great 
matters fell into the hands of monks and Schoolmen. . . ." 

In the 'fifties there was some degeneration, and the 
revival of Convocation was not on the wider basis which 
might have quickened clerical energy and lay enthusiasm. 
In the 'sixties the Church began to be "in danger." Radical- 
ism and Ritualism united ; and there is a manuscript letter 
of Disraeli, still extant, written at this period, and affording 
some very interesting and secret knowledge. 

What Disraeli disliked and regretted was that the choice 
between faith and free thought should be more and more 
presented as one between the Roman purple and the "Red 
Republic." 

And this brings me to the consideration of Disraeli's ideas 
regarding the Latin Church, the immortal Rome, " that great 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 171 

confederacy which has so much influenced the human race, 
and which has yet to play perhaps a mighty part in the 
fortunes of the world." 

This imperial form of Theocracy exercised for him, both 
imaginatively and historically, an enormous attraction. Its 
special appeal to the Latin and Celtic races ; its unbroken 
/ phalanx of organisation ; its immemorial ' persistence of 
policy ; its creative combination of spirituality with art, of 
purity with beauty ; its union of ideals beyond and above the 
world with the mechanism of empires ; its blend of con- 
trasts, of solemn softness with sombre control, of charm with 
coldness, of callousness with charity, of loneliness with society, 
of curse and comfort ; its theoretic espousal of theological 
free will with the practical denial of it in action, and of out- 
ward pomp with inward simplicity ; its watchful intimacies 
with every moment of life — the way in which, as he puts it 
in Contarini, it ". . . produces in" its "dazzling processions 
and sacred festivals an effect upon the business of the day ; " 
its guardianship of the weak, the erring, and the poor ; its 
nursing motherhood of doubt and despair ; its insidious cap- 
tivation of the will and intellect ; its power to recall and 
continue the spirits of the centuries, to absorb schism and 
rebaptise it union ; its claims to obliterate the past for the 
penitent ; to keep all things old and make all things new ; 
its great deeds and its great heroes ; these elements and 
many more, that have cooped Jews in Ghettos while blazon- 
ing the proud inscription in front of St. Peter's, Vicit Leo de 
tribu Juda, — all these opposites enchant even when they fail 
to enchain the mind and the feelings. They have linked the 
Vatican and the Palatine, the see to the throne, the tiara to 
the diadem. They have transfigured, while maintaining, 
pagan rites and customs, till " Madre Natura " reappears with 
a halo, the very shrines of the Madonna repeat the antique 
pattern of those dedicated to the Lares and Penates, and the 
procession of waxen images in Southern Italy but perpetuates 
another and an older ceremony. The Roman Church has 
been the most consistent educator, the greatest organiser, 
the most universal legislator of the last thousand years. It 
has attained uncompromising ends unswervingly pursued by 



172 DISRAELI 

compromises the most subtle and the most skilful. Nor is the 
esoteric doctrine which recalls the Eleusinian Mysteries, and 
enables the initiated to regard forms comprehensible by the 
multitude as merely popular symbols of higher truths, without 
a certain glamour of its own. Disraeli's father had penned 
a treatise on the Jesuits, and their history had been deeply 
studied by the son. I can still recall the unconscious tone of 
ironical appreciation with which one of those "professors," 
"capable of effecting a great influence on the youth of 
England," informed me that when he met Disraeli, " he spoke 
to me of the Jesuits." Both the two factors in himself which 
I have mentioned, the sense of mystery and the impulse to 
control, are precisely the atmosphere of the Papal Church. 
There was, therefore, to some extent the attraction of affinity. 
But the Papacy appealed to him imaginatively, not theo- 
logically, as it did to his great rival. I recollect being told 
by a member of the symposium that Gladstone once discussed 
deep into the night at Hawarden what form of Christianity 
would eventually survive and prevail. Three chosen friends 
agreed with him that it would be Romanism, the establisher 
and not the establishment, the supernational and not the 
national, theocratic and not (as Disraeli makes one of his 
characters describe the Church of England) "parliamentary 
Christianity." 

Not so Disraeli. Its political influences, its " clamour for 
toleration," its " labour for supremacy," ^ its warping limita- 
tions, its prying priestcraft, its humble haughtiness, its casuis- 
tic candour, its centralising forces fatal to Northern liberty, 
the ban placed on free discussion and free intercourse, its 
proclamation of the uniformity rather than of the unity of 
human nature, and above all its admixture of paganism, were 
the drawbacks that repelled him. "The tradition of the 
Anglican Church was powerful," he observes, adverting to 
that "mistake and misfortune" of Newman's desertion. 
" Resting on the Church of Jerusalem, modified by the divine 
school of Galilee, it would have found that rock of truth 
which Providence, by the instrumentality of the Semitic race, 
had promised to St. Peter. Instead of that, the seceders 
1 Letter to D. O'Connell, 1835. 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 173 

sought refuge in mediaeval superstitions which are generally 
the embodiments of pagan ceremonies and creeds." ^ 

The spell of Romanism is an incident in Contarini 
Fleming. The spell, but also the perils of Romanism, its 
bewitchment of judgment and of conscience, its repugnance 
to free politics and independent wills, its arrogance of inspir- 
ation, its monopolies, its burdens of enjoined etiquette, form 
the theme of Lothair. He cannot bind himself to the danger, 
yet how adorable is its source ! How firm the rock on which 
it is founded, when it is not of offence ! How certain the 
conclusions, if only the premises can be conceded ! 

" Religion is civilisation," said the Cardinal—" the highest : 
it is a reclamation of man from savageness by the Almighty. 
What the world calls civilisation, as distinguished from 
religion, is a retrograde movement, and will ultimately lead 
us back to the barbarism from which we have escaped. For 
instance, you talk of progress : what is the chief social move- 
ment of all the centuries that three centuries ago separated 
from the unity of the Church of Christ ? The rejection of the 
Sacrament of Christian matrimony. The introduction of 
the law of divorce, which is, in fact, only a middle term to 
the abolition of marriage. What does that mean } The 
extinction of the home and household on which God has rested 
civilisation. If there be no home, the child belongs to the 
State, not to the parent. The State educates the child, and 
without religion, because the State in a country of progress 
acknowledges no religion.^ For every man is not only to 
think as he likes, but to write and speak as he likes. . . . 
And this system which would substitute for domestic senti- 
ment and Divine belief the unlimited and licentious action of 
human intelligence and will, is called progress. What is it 
but a revolt against God ? " 

What religious intelligence would not endorse these 
truths ! But let us now listen to the other side, that of 
" other-worldliness," of "the conversion — or conquest of 

1 This has been elaborately developed by Bolingbroke in his 
" Philosophical Works." 

' How true this has now proved itself in France ! 



174 DISRAELI 

England," though the allusions to " Corybantic Christianity " 
are not without justice. 

"There is only one Church and one Religion," said the 
Cardinal ; " all other forms and phrases are mere phantasms, 
without root or substance or coherency. Look at that un- 
happy Germany, once so proud of its Reformation. ... Look 
at this unfortunate land, divided, subdivided, parcelled out in 
infinite schism, with new oracles every day, and each more 
distinguished for the narrowness of his intellect or the loud- 
ness of his lungs ; once the land of saints and scholars, 
and people in pious pilgrimages, and finding always solace 
and support in the Divine offices of an ever-present Church ; 
which were a true, though a faint type of the beautiful future 
that awaited man. Why, only three centuries of this rebellion 
against the Most High have produced ... an anarchy of 
opinion, throwing out every monstrous and fantastic form, 
from a caricature of the Greek Philosophy to a revival of 
Feticism, . . . The Church of England is not the Church of 
the English. Its fate is sealed. It will soon become a sect, 
and all sects are fantastic. It will adopt new dogmas, or it 
will abjure old ones ; anything to distinguish it from the Non- 
conforming herd in which nevertheless it will be its fate to 
merge. . . ." 

" I cannot admit," replied the Cardinal, " that the Church is 
in antagonism with political freedom. On the contrary, in 
my opinion, there can be no political freedom which is not 
founded on Divine authority ; otherwise it can be at the best 
but a specious phantom of licence inevitably terminating in 
anarchy. The rights and liberties of the people of Ireland 
have no advocate except the Church, because there political 
freedom is founded on Divine authority ; but if you mean by 
political freedom the schemes of the illuminati and the Free- 
masons, which perpetually torture the Continent, all the dark 
conspiracies of the secret societies, then I admit the Church is 
in antagonism with such aspirations after liberty ; those aspira- 
tions, in fact, are blasphemy and plunder. And if the Church 
were to be destroyed, Europe would be divided between 
the atheist and the communist." 

This last opinion is Disraeli's own. None knew better, or 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 175 

realised more, the disintegrating terrors of the secret societies, 
the propaganda of desperation served by desperadoes and 
exploited by soldiers of fortune. 

Disraeli appreciated and often testified that Roman Chris- 
tianity had pre-eminently spiritualised the once undecayed 
Latin races. To its services and ideals he always paid the 
deepest homage ; for some of them he displayed an evident 
affection. Nowhere has the higher aspiration of Romanism 
been portrayed more touchingly than in the person of " Clare 
Arundel." The description in that book of the Tenehrce 
vibrates with delicate emotion. In the same book he foresees 
the erection on the site of slums of the stately fane which now 
adorns Westminster. ''His public utterances on Ireland, on the 
Maynooth question, and many others, his ardent champion- 
ship of the bill which secured the offices of his priest for 
the Catholic prisoner, showed not only respect, but a 
sympathy and conversance with Roman affairs passing that 
of ordinary statesmen. But, as a statesman, he also realised 
that the Roman Church was not only hostile to the Anglo- 
Saxon instincts, but has always claimed a despotic temporal 
dominion ; and he also realised not only the earlier and 
far-reaching designs of Cardinal Wiseman, but the later 
diplomacies of a definite scheme for the capture, now that 
absolutism is on the wane, of democracy. Rome means to be 
the sole absolutism that shall survive. What Disraeli dreaded 
and countervailed was the new-fangled alliance, not only 
between Radicalism, but between Liberalism and Romanism. 
In Ireland, as I shall show, a peculiar phase of the design was 
apparent, and what Rome had manoeuvred she came to 
deplore and even to struggle to prevent. In Lothair, " Mon- 
signor Berwick," Antonelli's ultramontane disciple, is made to 
say of " Churchill," the leader of Irish Nationalism, " For the 
chance of subverting the Anglican establishment, he is favour- 
ing a policy which will subvert religion itself" 

In later times the famous encyclical Rerum Novarum, 
Monsignor Ireland and the " Knights of Labour " in America, 
Cardinal Manning and the London Dock strikers, are an 
evidence that Disraeli's insight was sound. 

The people as a Civitas Dei — the Church-State — is a 



176 DISRAELI 

superb ideal, one with which Disraeli was in heartfelt accord. 
But under what national forms is this to be compassed in 
England ? A desire that Anglican orders should be con- 
firmed by the Bishop of Rome has been during the last few 
years publicly advanced by dignitaries of our own Church. 
Is the Roman system capable of satisfying the progressive 
demands of the masses in England ? Though their sordid 
homes need purifying, will they ever tolerate the intrusion of 
their privacy by celibate priests ? Is a doctrinal absolutism, 
which the people themselves have dethroned from political 
ascendency, likely to consummate the cosmopolitan dream } 
State socialism divorced from ecclesiastical dominion would 
never for one moment enlist the Pope. And if some form 
even of State socialism ever became national (and Disraeli 
could have withstood it to the death), how could Catholic 
socialism control the socialism of the State } Can the 
supreme voice of God brook the admonitions of the voice of 
the people ? 

Lothair treats more especially of the diplomacies of Rome, 
and perhaps the polite struggle at "Muriel Towers," between the 
Cardinal and the Bishop for the hero's soul, is one of Disraeli's 
most finished pieces of humour. " The Anglicans have only 
a lease of our property, a lease rapidly expiring," ejaculates 
" Monsignor Berwick." This imminent expiry of the lease is 
undoubtedly a cherished hope of the Vatican and Sacred 
College. 

"Lothair," it will be remembered, himself an earnest if 
somewhat ineffectual youth, falls under the influence of "Lady 
St. Jerome," whose houses are rallying-centres for the great 
Cardinal and his associates. "Lady St. Jerome " induces 
"Lothair" to attend the office of the Tenebr(B. He is told 
that nothing in this particular service can prevent a Protestant 
from attending it. This is followed by the master-gardener, 
" Father Coleman's " comments on the adoration of the Cross 
in the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified, and a picnic with "Miss 
Arundel" and the courtly "Monsignor Catesby." "The 
Jesuits are wise men ; they never lose their temper. They 
know when to avoid scenes as well as when to make them." 
" Lothair," under the banner of his heroine, " Theodora," fights 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 177 

for Garibaldi and the "Madre Natura" against the Papal 
troops. He is wounded at Mentana, and, by a coincidence, 
tended by " Clare Arundel " and her Roman circle. On his 
recovery, a miracle is announced concerning his rescue. The 
Virgin has interposed to save a defender of the Faith. He 
is led to a great function in the sacristy of St. George of 
Cappadocia. He finds himself the centre of devout attrac- 
tion. The Cardinal assures him that the miracle is true. 
"Lothair" indignantly protests and denies. The Cardinal 
maintains that there are two " narratives of his relations with 
the battle of Mentana." " If I were you, I would not dwell 
too much on this fancy of yours about the battle." ..." I am 
not convinced," said " Lothair." " Hush ! " said the Cardinal ; 
" the freaks of your own mind about personal incidents, how- 
ever lamentable, may be viewed with indulgence, at least for 
a time. But you cannot be permitted to doubt of the rest. 
You must be convinced, and, on reflection, you will be con- 
vinced. Remember, sir, where you are. You are in the 
centre of Christendom, where truth, and where alone truth 
resides." 

Nobody for one moment would believe that the illustrious 
Archbishop of Westminster debased strategy to stratagem ; 
or could under any circumstances have resorted to a deliberate 
lie. Lothair is a satirical fairy-tale, and "Cardinal Grandi- 
son " is only an outward semblance of the late Cardinal 
Manning. But this passage sheds a true light on Rome's 
attitude towards doubt, and her methods of proselytising ; it 
shadows her secular policy. Can any one deny that "the 
truth with a mental reserve " of Jesuitry composes much of 
the plot in the drama of the hierarchy? Moreover, the 
passage agrees with a very remarkable one in a distinguished 
French novel that appeared three years afterwards — " LAbbe 
Tigrane," by M. Fabre. Long after these events, when 
"Lothair" comes of age, his guardian, the same Cardinal, 
converses with him on the impending CEcumenical Council. 
The duologue contains a forcible summary of the Church's 
infallibility, however fallible may seem her individual 
members : — 

" The basis on which God has willed that His revelation 



178 DISRAELI 

should rest in the world is the testimony of the Catholic 
Church, which, if considered only as a human historical wit- 
ness of its own origin, constitution, and authority, affords the 
highest and most enduring evidence for the facts and contents 
of the Christian religion. If this be denied, there is no such 
thing as history. But the Catholic Church is not only a 
human and historical witness of its own origin, constitution, 
and authority, it is also a supernatural and Divine witness, 
which can neither fail nor err. When it cecumenically speaks, 
it is not merely the voice of the Father of the World ; it 
declares * what it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and 
to us: " 

No wonder that " Lothair," sitting down in the crisis of 
his life by the moonlit Coliseum, muses in a rhapsody of 
the magnetism for opposed causes of the genius of the spot, 
strangely anticipating Zola's contrast between the new Italian 
" Orlando " and the old Italian " Boccanera." 

" Theodora lived for Rome and died for Rome. And the 
Cardinal, born and bred an English gentleman, with many 
hopes and honours, had renounced his religion and, it might 
be said, his country, for Rome ; and his race for three hundred 
years had given, for the same cause, honour, and broad 
estates, and unhesitating lives. And these very people were 
influenced by different motives, and thought they were 
devoting themselves to opposite ends. But still it was Rome ; 
Republican or Csesarian, papal or pagan, it still was Rome." 

I have shown the sources, as I believe, of Disraeli's con- 
victions. He was the first to dwell on those problems of 
race which are now recognised. His derided "Asian 
mystery" has been amply justified. His view of the "Cau- 
casian " is that of subsequent science. Writing nearly forty 
years after he had mooted his ideas, he observed : " familiar 
as we all are now with such themes . . . the difficulty and 
hazard of touching for the first time on such topics cannot 
now be easily appreciated." His beliefs were racial, and 
depended on the clue of race to history. Their applications, 
however, were national. For he knew that race is only an 
element among the shared associations and common language, 
customs and history, that make up that ideal assembly which 



CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 179 

is called a nation ; and he also knew that mere communica- 
tion is not communion ; that the rapidity of increased methods 
of material intercourse will never extinguish the slow, but 
certain, fires of race discord, which can only "consume its 
own smoke " through the free fusion of nationality. 

His own race he cleared from prejudice, and proudly dis- 
played as a potent, if sometimes hidden, force throughout the 
world. His praise and illustration of its endowments, its 
strength by virtue of its purity of strain, its tenacity and 
power of organisation, its veiled ramifications among the 
mainsprings that move Governments and alter systems, no 
longer raise a smile ; and if they did, they would certainly 
cease to do so when placed on the lips of Macaulay, who 
thus treated them — 

" He knows," said Macaulay, speaking in 1833 of the 
member for the University of Oxford — "he knows that in 
the infancy of civilisation, when our island was as savage as 
New Guinea, when letters and arts were still unknown to 
Athens, when scarcely a thatched hut stood on what was 
afterwards the site of Rome, this contemned people had 
their fenced cities and cedar palaces, their splendid Temple, 
their fleets of merchant ships, their schools of sacred learn- 
ing, their great statesmen and soldiers, their natural philo- 
sophers, their historians and their poets. . . . Let us open 
to them every career in which ability and energy can be 
displayed. Till we have done this, let us not presume to 
say that there is no genius among the countrymen of Isaiah, 
or heroism 'among the descendants of the Maccabees." 



CHAPTER V 
MONARCHY 

" '' I ^O change back the oligarchy into a generous aris- 
I tocracy round a real throne,'' Disraeli ranks, with 

JL his ideal mission towards the Church, as " the trainer 
of the nation ; " towards Labour, to " the moral 
and physical condition of the people ; " towards Ireland, by 
governing it " according to the policy of Charles L, and not 
of Oliver Cromwell ; " to Reform, by emancipating " the 
political constituency of 1832 from its sectarian bondage and 
contracted sympathies." 

"Sovereignty," he says, in the peroration to Sybil, "has 
been the title of something that has had no dominion, while 
absolute power has been wielded by those who profess them- 
selves the servants of the people. In the selfish strife of 
factions, two great existences have been blotted out of the 
history of England — the Monarch and the Multitude ; as the 
power of the Crown has diminished, the privileges of the 
people have disappeared. . . ." Such was Disraeli's sum- 
mary in 1870 of what inspired "Young England" in 1840. 
The more real is representation, the greater the chances of 
royalty. De Tocqueville, too, has shown that it was just the 
decay of mediaeval, municipal institutions that loosened the 
hold of the French Crown on the French nation. 

The " real throne," as against the ornamental, formed a very 
material part of it. It chimed with Disraeli's outlook on 
English institutions as "popular, but not democratic." Since 
Sybil was written, the " subject " is no longer " a serf," but 
for a long time the " sceptre " tended to remain " a pageant." 
The constitutional possibilities and opportunities of kingship 

180 



M0:NTARCHY i8i 

under our limited monarchy are even now, perhaps, hardly 
realised. Before I close this chapter, I intend to say some- 
thing of their historical lineage. 

There is a satirical passage about George the Fourth 
among the brilliant flippancies of Vivian Grey, which may 
amuse us before coming to close quarters with the serious 
side of sovereignty : " The first great duty of a monarch is to 
know how to bow skilfully. Nothing is more difficult, ... a 
royal bow may often quell a rebellion, and sometimes crush 
a conspiracy. Our own Sovereign bows to perfection. His 
bow is eloquent, and will always render an oration . . . un- 
necessary, which is a great point, for harangues are not regal. 
Nothing is more undignified than to make a speech. It is 
from the first an acknowledgment that you are under the 
necessity of explaining, or conciliating, or convincing, or con- 
futing ; in short, that you are not omnipotent, but opposed." 

"The Monarchy of the Tories is more democratic than 
the Republic of the Whigs ! " exclaimed Disraeli, as I have 
already quoted, in his early Spirit of Whiggisni. " I think," 
cried Canning in 1812, "that we have the happiness to live 
under a limited monarchy, not under a crowned republic ; " 
while, six years later. Canning again denounced most forcibly 
the error of those " who argue as if the constitution of this 
country was a broad and level democracy inlaid (for orna- 
ment's sake) with a peerage and topped (by sufferance) with 
a crown." This belief inspired the same statesman when, 
towards the agitated close of his days, he speaks in a letter 
to Mr. Croker of his reliance on the " vigour of the Crown " 
in conjunction with the '* body of the people." 

This, too, was the belief that inspired Disraeli. " The 
monarch and the multitude^ Monarchy should be neither a 
gewgaw nor an abstraction, but a centre of national enthu- 
siasm. " It is enthusiasm alone that gives flesh and blood to 
the skeletons of opinions." From the beginning of the first 
to the close of the fifth decade of last century kingship had 
been on its trial in England. " The Tories," wrote Disraeli 
in The Press, " already recognised the necessity of employing 
all the popular elements of the Constitution in support of its 
monarchical foundation." 



1 82 DISRAELI 

Just as I have shown with regard to the Church, his pre- 
disposition lay towards pure Theocracy, but his practical bent 
discerned in a national Church its aptest arid most congenial 
embodiment ; so with regard to kingship his predisposition lay 
towards pure monarchy — royal leadership — which he knew, and 
indeed hoped, could in England never prove absolute, still 
less arbitrary. But a British king retains the great advantage 
of being outside the prejudices of every order in the State 
of which he is the social chieftain. The tendency, mused 
" Sidonia," of " advanced civilisation was to ' pure monarchy ; ' " 
"Monarchy is indeed a government which requires a high 
degree of civilisation for its fulfilment." Public opinion, 
absorbing so many functions of control, training, and dis- 
cussion, should find in the king a disinterested exponent. " In 
an enlightened age, the monarch on the throne, free from the 
vulgar prejudices and the corrupt interests of the subject, 
again becomes divine." But this was said with regard to 
France, and in answer to " Coning sby's" hazard that the re- 
public of that country might absorb its kingdom, and Paris ^ 
the provinces. It was a dream. None felt more deeply than 
Disraeli that English tradition was the temper of England. 
None, more than he, deprecated centralisation. The very 
value of her " glorious institutions " is, as he often insists, that 
they foster, in a form above the passions of momentary out- 
burst or fickle reactions, those great elements of loyalty, 
religion, industry, liberty, and order which have conjoined 
to make and keep her great. Representing classes, they 
humanise virtues. The problem since the Revolution has 
always been how to bring the varying force of public opinion, 
the power of Parliament, and the cabinet system, which has 
gradually crystallised, into line with the ancient and bene- 
ficial personality of the Crown ; in later times, how to reconcile 
the King both to Downing and also to Fleet Street ; how to 
harmonise the dependence of his just limits with the indepen- 
dence of his just influence ; how to render him no mere 
roi fainiant, or marionette to be danced on the wires of 
patricians or tribunes, but a real representative individuality ; 
how he may rule as well as reign ; and all this, in this country 

* Elsewhere Disraeli said that Paris always remains a republic. 



MdNARCHY 183 

and in this century, without assuming any kind of either 
fatherly or of stepfatherly meddlesomeness ; for the " Patriot 
King" must never take even a tinge of the Patriarch. He 
must be one, whatever else he may be, who " thinks more of 
the community and less of the government." He must, in 
a word, bear himself as a chief, and not as a master. 
As Byron sang, bearing Bolingbroke in mind — 

" A despot thou, and yet thy people free, 
And by the hearty not hand, enslaving us." 

The monarch, thought Disraeli, embodies the national 
elements in a form of abiding and unarbitrary influence ; he 
is above interest and beyond party; his position prevents, 
his functions collide with, any favouritism of any class. A 
King at one with public opinion can prove a real check on 
individual designs, ministerial mistakes, private cajoleries, 
public passions. "The proper leader of the people is the 
individual who sits upon the throne." 

"'And yet,' said Coningsby, 'the only way to terminate 
what is called class legislation is not to entrust power to 
classes. . . . The only power that has no class sympathy is 
the Sovereign' 

"'But suppose the case of an arbitrary Sovereign, what 
would be your check against him ? ' 

" ' The same as against an arbitrary Parliament.' 

'"But a Parliament is responsible ... to its constituent 

body.' 

" ' Suppose it was to vote itself perpetual ? ' 

" * But public opinion would prevent that.' 

" ' And is public opinion of less influence on an individual 

than on a body ? ' 

" ' But public opinion may be indifferent. A nation may 
be misled — may be corrupt.' 

" ' If the nation that elects the Parliament be corrupt, the 
elected body will resemble it. . . . But this only shows 
that there is something to be considered beyond forms of 
government — national character. . . .' 

" ' But do you then declare against Parliamentary govern- 
ment ? ' 



1 84 DISRAELI 



« ( 



Far from it. / look upon political change as the greatest 
of evils, for it comprehends all. But if we have no faith in 
the permanence of the existing settlement — if the very indi- 
viduals who established it are year after year proposing 
their modifications or their reconstructions — so, also, while 
we uphold what exists, ought we to prepare ourselves for the 
change we deem impending. Now, I would not that either 
ourselves or our fellow-citizens should be taken unawares as 
in 1832, when the very men who opposed the Reform Bill 
offered contrary objections to it which destroyed each other, 
so ignorant were they of its real character, historical causes, 
its political consequences. . . . For this purpose I would 
accustom the public mind to the contemplation of an existing 
though torpid power in the constitution, capable of removing 
our social grievances. . . . The House of Commons is the 
house of a few ,- the Sovereign is the sovereign of all! " 

Now, undoubtedly the period to which these words refer 
was one when certain Whig leaders contemplated an oli- 
garchical republic, and wished to compass their aim by an 
undue exaltation of the Lower House, as, in 1718, Sunderland 
had wished to attain the same end by that of the Upper. No 
student of the Croker Papers can fail to recognise the 
fact, and undoubtedly Disraeli thought — and Sir Robert Peel 
thought so too — that the times were ripe for reviving those 
constitutional prerogatives, those kingly privileges which 
form the Crown's sole direct representative faculty in the 
constitution, of which the Crown had long been robbed, first 
by its own alternate abuse or incapacity to use them, after- 
wards by faction itself often imitating the royal errors. And 
so the executive power had passed almost wholly into 
ministerial hands. After 1830 the prerogatives which, as I 
shall show, Mr. Gladstone champions, seemed falling into 
entire abeyance. In 1836, before he had entered Parliament, 
Disraeli had, in the Runnymede Letters, where he spoke of 
" the people of England sighing once more to be a nation," 
called on Sir Robert Peel to achieve " a great task in a great 
spirit ^^—^^ rescue your Sovereign from an tmconstitutional thral- 
dom ; rescue an august Senate which has already fought the 
battle of the people ; rescue our National Church which our 



MONARCHY 185 

opponents hate, our venerable constitution at which they scoff; 
but, above all, rescue that mighty body of which all these great 
classes and institutions are but one of the constituent and 
essential parts — rescue the nation^ 

In 1837, "our young Queen and our old Institutions" 
were no mere catchwords. And it seems unquestionable, also, 
that the subsequent interferences of Baron Stockmar, the late 
Queen's early tutelage to Lord Melbourne, the circumstances 
attendant on her happy marriage, the peculiar treatment of 
Prince Consort by her first ministers, and the long retirement 
due to private grief, contributed in successive combination 
towards that invisibility, so to speak, of her royal office, which 
prevailed, though it did not, however, eventually preclude her 
very real and valuable exercise of it. In England the only 
true blemish of our party system, which Disraeli vehemently 
fought to uphold, is, as he more than once urged, that it tends 
to "warp the intelligence." To this fault the wisdom of a 
constitutional and popular monarch, above and beyond party, 
offers an antidote. 

Sir Robert Peel, in the very year of Queen Victoria's 
accession, writes to Croker as follows : — 

"... The theory of the constitution is that the King has 
no will except in the choice of his ministers. . . . Bttt this, 
like a thousand other theories, is at variance with the fact. 
The personal character of the sovereign . . . has an immense 
practical effect. . . . There may not be violent collisions 
between the King and his Government, but his influence, 
though dormant and unseen, may be very powerful. Respect 
for personal character will operate in some cases ; in others 
the King will have all the authority which greater and more 
widely extended experience than that of any single minister 
will naturally give. A King, after a reign of ten years, ought 
to know much more of the working of the machine of govern- 
ment than any other man in the country. He is the centre to 
which all business gravitates. The knowledge that the King 
holds firmly a certain opinion, and will abide by it, prevents 
in many cases an opposite opinion being offered to him. . . . 
The personal character of a really constitutional King, of 
mature age, of experience in public affairs, and knowledge^ 



i86 DISRAELI 

manners, and customs, is practically so much ballast, keeping 
the vessel of the State steady in her course, countervailing the 
levity of popular ministers, of orators forced by oratory into 
public councils, the blasts of democratic passions, the ground- 
swell of discontent, and 'the ignorant impatience for the 
relaxation of taxation.' . . . The genius of the Constitution 
had contrived this in times gone by. 

" ' Speluncis abdidit atris 
Hoc metuens, molemque et montes insuper altos 
Imposuit, Regemque dedit, qui foedere certo 
Et premere, et laxas sciret dare jussus habenas.' 

" If at other times this paternal authority ^ were requisite, 
the authority to be exercised fozdere certo, by the nice tact of 
an experienced hand, how much more is it necessary when 
every institution is reeling, when 

* Excutimur cursu, et ccecis erramus in undis ' J " 

Sir Robert's idea, then, of a constitutional sovereign was 
that of an unseen driver who holds the reins from within. 
The sailor-king of narrow mind but broad sympathies, just 
departed when Peel wrote, had not proved a cipher. He 
insisted on being for a space Lord High Admiral, despite 
Croker's ungenerous retort that James H. had done the same. 
In 1828 he had offered wise advice to his ministers as to the 
unripeness of the times for a change in the form then proposed, 
which touched his heart. On his accession he emphatically 
expressed his pleasure in retaining his ministers. And, though 
he composed a couplet so bad that it might have been the 
jingle of Harley — 

'•'■A dissolution 
Means revolution,^'' 

yet throughout the brief and perplexed span of his reign he 
honestly tried to accord with the whole nation as opposed 
to cliques and sections of it that assumed the title of "the 
people." The fact was that he acceded during one of those 
crises when the balance of power was shifting, and, his intellect 

^ It will be noticed that Sir Robert goes beyond Disraeli's ideas of 
direct kingship. 



• MONARCHY 187 

being mediocre, he became bewildered. The new, the legiti- 
mate, the organised predominance of public opinion clashed 
with Parliament, and was played upon by ambitious ministers. 
William the Fourth lived in just fear and blunt defiance of 
that "Venetian oligarchy" which ever since 1704 had been 
the recurrent ideal of the place-engrossing, great revolution 
families. What he apprehended was foiled, principally by the 
personality of Sir Robert Peel, whom he summoned to his 
aid. Henceforward the monarchy became, as it ought long 
before to have become, completely, if gradually, popularised. 
When monarchy is popular, the invisibility of its office ceases 
to be an expedient. "... I think," said Disraeli, in a speech 
of 1850, "it one of the great misfortunes of our time, and one 
most injurious to public liberty, that the power of the Crown 
has diminished." 

With Victoria and our present King— if we except a very 
transient spasm of George HI., whose first essay to be a 
"patriot king" had been to dismiss and thwart the most 
popular minister that England has ever had— monarchy has 
for the first time during nearly two centuries proved wholly 
and nationally popular. Before the Stuarts, Elizabeth had 
ruled by the sole virtue of her popularity ; she had " inflamed 
the national spirit," and the checks introduced by the 
Revolution were only a necessity for unpopular sovereigns. 
The Press has now introduced a far greater check than any of 
these. Now that the nation is in full unison with the Crown, 
the King is doubly entitled to support the nation in hours of 
befitting emergency against the cabals or passions of a person, 
a clique, or a class. A modern English King is too cognisant 
of the popular feeling eloquent in an unbridled press ever to 
violate it ; he could not do so with impunity. The last surrender 
of "independent kingship," which Mr. Gladstone has noted, and 
others after him, was in 1827, when a weak sovereign renewed 
the "charter of administration of the day." There is no 
pretext now for a King to yield or hide his just and popular 
privileges to serve the turn of ministers. The necessity for a 
" monarch of Downing Street " has disappeared. 

Disraeli adverted to some of these topics at Manchester 
in 1872, long after the events of those times had passed. 



1 88 DISRAELI 

but when " the banner of republicanism " was once again 
unfurled. 

"... Since the settlement of that constitution, now nearly 
two centuries ago, England has never experienced a revolu- 
tion, though there is no country in which there has been so 
continuous and such considerable change. How is this ? 
Because the wisdom of your forefathers placed the prize of 
supreme power without the sphere of human passions. What- 
ever the struggle of parties, whatever the strife of factions, 
whatever the excitement and exaltation of the public mind, 
there has always been something in this country round which 
all classes and powers could rally, representing the majesty 
of the law, the administration of justice, and involving at 
the same time the security for every man's rights and the 
fountain of honour." And then, after emphasising the non- 
partisanship of the Crown, the very end which Bolingbroke 
forecasted at the time when an unemancipated King was 
condemned to be a party man, he led the discussion to the 
conventional views of the King being not only outside politics, 
but outside affairs. 

"... I know it will be said that, however beautiful in_ 
theory, the personal influence of the Sovereign is now ab- 
sorbed in the responsibility of the minister. I think you will 
find there is a great fallacy in this view. The principles of 
the English Constitution do not contemplate the absence of 
personal influence on the part of the Sovereign ; and if they 
did, the principles of human nature would prevent the fulfil- 
ment of such a theory." He is here in complete accord with 
Peel. " Even," he says, " with average ability, it is impossible 
not to perceive that such a Sovereign must soon attain a 
great mass of political information and political experience. 
Information and experience, . . . whether they are possessed 
by a Sovereign or by the humblest of his subjects, are irresis- 
tible in life. . . . The longer the reign, the influence of that 
Sovereign must proportionately increase. All the illustrious 
statesmen who served his youth disappear. A new genera- 
tion of public servants rises up. There is a critical conjuncture 
in affairs — a moment of perplexity and peril. Then it is that 
the Sovereign can appeal to a similar state of affairs that 



MONARCHY 189 

occurred perhaps thirty years before. When all are in doubt 
among his servants, he can quote the advice that was given 
by the illustrious men of his early years, and though he may 
maintain himself within the strictest limits of the Constitution, 
who can suppose, when such information and such suggestions 
are made by the most exalted person in the country, that 
they can be without effect ? No ; . . . a minister who could 
venture to treat such influence with indifference would not be 
a Constitutional minister, but an arrogant idiot. . . ." And 
in another speech of the same year, after insisting that 
English attachment to English institutions was no "political 
superstition," but sprang from a resolve that " the principles of 
liberty^ of order, of law , and of religion ought not to be entrusted 
to individual opinion, or to the caprice and passion of imdtitudes, 
but should be embodied in a form of permanence and power ^^ 
he also remarked : "... We associate with the Monarchy 
the ideas which it represents — the majesty of law, the adminis- 
tration of justice, the fountain of mercy and honour." He 
might, in fitness with his other pronouncements, have added 
the ideas of loyalty and of leadership. Again, in 1871, a 
moment of republican revival, adverting to the superinten- 
dence of public business by the Sovereign, he insisted that 
"... there is not a dispatch received from abroad, or sent 
from this country abroad, which is not submitted to the 
Queen. . . . Those Cabinet Councils, . . . which are neces- 
sarily the scene of anxious and important deliberations, are 
reported and communicated, . . . and they often call from 
her critical remarks requiring considerable attention. . . . 
No person likely to administer the affairs of this country 
would treat the suggestions of Her Majesty with indifference, 
for at this moment there is probably no person living who 
has such complete control over the political conditions. . . . 
But, although there never was a Sovereign who would less 
arrogate any power or prerogative which the Constitution 
does not authorise, so I will say there never was one more 
wisely jealous of those which the Constitution has allotted to 
her, because she believes they are for the welfare of her 
people." 

It is by its constitutional prerogatives that, in the first 



iQo DISRAELI 

place, the Crown can assert its lawful influence. They confer 
on him a deciding power in many spheres. Of these pre- 
rogatives Disraeli was a champion ; and Mr. Gladstone up- 
held them in at least two interesting discussions among his 
" Gleanings." 

To defer the most obvious among these, the King's con- 
sultative faculty, " the power," to cite Mr. Gladstone, " which 
gives the monarch an undoubted locus standi in all the 
deliberations of a Government, . . . remains as it was." In 
olden days this was effected openly in form. Nor should it be 
forgotten that whenever a Ministry is changed, again to cite 
Mr. Gladstone, "the whole power of the State periodically 
returns into the royal hands." In 1852, when Lord Derby 
reluctantly consented to assume office with a minority, there 
were forty-eight hours when, as Disraeli pointed out in a 
speech of 1873, "the Queen was without a Government." 
Then take the royal prerogative of dissolution. This right 
enabled, in 1852, that very administration to perform the 
work of the session, and to carry the supplies before appealing 
to the constituencies on its right to exist. It is in effect a 
right of appeal by the Sovereign through or even against 
(should he deem it their duty to take the national voice) his 
ministers to the country ; and in any crucial instance it 
forms the best check to faction of which our Constitution 
admits. 

Further, there exists the admitted prerogative, openly 
exercised, of choice of ministers. This was the main arena 
of party cleavage under the greater portion of the sway of 
George III. It was this which, as Mr. Gladstone also men- 
tions, was unsuccessfully, but neither unwholesomely nor 
unfairly, pressed into popular service in 1834. And, among 
many others remaining, there is that to appoint bishops — a 
stalking-ground of contention during the reign of Anne, and, 
in the Victorian era, signalised by Dr. Hampden's appoint- 
ment against a remonstrant primate. There is the prerogative 
of the Royal Warrant utilised by Mr. Gladstone himself in 
the repeal of the Purchase Act. There is the prerogative of 
disapproving the choice of Speaker, which will probably cease. 
There is that for proposing grants of public money, and there 



MONARCHY 191 

is the salutary initiative of Royal Commission which paves 
the way for social reform. On these personal rights I need 
not dwell. But on the prerogative of peace and war a word 
must be said. Had it been withheld for hostilities in the 
Crimea, a needless complication of Europe need never have 
occurred.^ We may conjecture that its influence was not 
absent from our recent peace in South Africa. Mr. Gladstone 
has instanced the Chinese war, some fifty years ago, as an 
example of carrying on a conflict believed to be necessary 
despite its condemnation by "the stewards of the pubhc 
purse." The Sovereign has also the undoubted right to 
consult with his ministers, and to attend the deliberations 
of his Cabinet. Queen Anne did this habitually, and the 
fatal movement of her fan decided great issues on more than 
one occasion. The first two Georges used on occasion, but 
with indifference where money was not concerned, to do the 
same. Since then it has fallen into disuse, and perhaps the 
end is better served by the premier's audiences with his 
King. But I may here be permitted to hope that when the 
great intercolonial council which is in the air has taken shape, 
the Sovereign may deign to be its President. Such a decision 
would be in complete accord with the policy of Disraeli, who 
affirmed in 1876, "No one regrets more than I do that 
favourable opportunities have been lost of identifying the 
colonies with the royal race of England." 

The prerogatives are the royal faculties for independent 
expression. But it is obviously not by prerogative mainly 
or alone that the Crown rivets and can mould a nation. 
The Crown is a many-sided emblem. It is the centre of 
English unity, a focus of consolidation and compactness ; 
while it also represents Great and Greater Britain abroad. 
As a source of home sympathy, as the embodiment of the 

^ In 1872, Disraeli said, after stating that Lord Derby's successor was 
no enemy to Russian aggression, "... I speak of what I know, not of 
what I believe, but of what I have evidence in my possession to prove, 
that the Crimean War would never have happened if Lord Derby had 
remained in office. . . ." Lord Derby's error in resigning in 1853 he 
always deplored ,--just as he regretted equally his rash acceptance of 
ofifice during the previous year, and his more fatal timidity in shrinking 
from assuming it in 1855. 



192 DISRAELI 

might and mercy of a great Empire, as the durable impersona- 
tion of the individual character that out of many welded 
races creates a united Empire, it is manifestly operative. I 
may add that it may also set an example of simplicity, for 
the Crown is able to bring choice virtues into vulgar fashion. 

Nor should sight be lost of the immense services which 
the Sovereign may render to British interests abroad. Shifting 
administrations encourage various hopes in foreign powers. 
The Crimean War was an outcome of such renewed aspira- 
tions. Our foreign policy lacks the strength of continuity, 
and its changefulness seems ineradicable from our party 
system. It is, therefore, of high importance that European 
courts should be able to count on certain limits which they 
know that a monarch whom they respect is likely to maintain. 
Such a consciousness of finality enables foreign Governments 
to moderate the popular clamour often worked up by dis- 
honest agitation, and the more obstinate because purposely 
misinformed. The Crown can thus become a great con- 
ciliator,^ and sometimes a preventer of actual war. The 
affinities of the blood royal to continental dynasties are not 
so cogent, though their material aid as sources of inner 
information is manifest. But as guarantees of amity they 
often prove comparatively helpless, unless supported by the 
recognition of character, tact, and abilities, for which the 
nurture of every British prince should fit him, and which 
entitle him to appeal to every differing headship of peoples 
abroad, as well as to the originally alien ingredients of empire 
at home. The British Sovereign may well be called the 
Member for the Empire. 

On these aspects Disraeli often dwelt ; and at a period 
when, for these objects, the comparatively small expense was 
affected to be grudged by a set of extreme politicians, his 
analysis proved its cheapness in proportion to the cost of 
large democracies and republics. 

A great outcry was raised when, twenty-seven years ago, 
Disraeli made the startling move of appealing alike to the 
Hindoo and the Mohammedan sentiment by investing Queen 
Victoria with a title which has impressed India with the 

^ This passage was written before the events of 1903. 



MONARCHY 193 

grandeur of Great Britain. To the Oriental the style of a 
white queen meant as little as to the queen of the Ansaries, so 
humorously depicted in Tancred. It was well said of Disraeli 
by Lord Salisbury, in the speech which commemorated his 
death, that zeal for the greatness of England had eaten him 
up ; and zeal, as Disraeli observed in an Irish speech of 1844, 
is rare enough in these days. Never was a stroke more 
justified by its results. Like the purchase of the Suez Canal 
shares, equally justified, it was bitterly and blindly assailed. 
" Bastard imperialism " was the refrain of the Opposition, No 
one knew on what sacred ark the Machiavellian finger might 
next be laid. 

Disraeli proved that " empress " was an old ascription 
even in England, and that " emperor " even in the Western 
mind was not a title bound up with "bad associations." 
Macaulay had singled out the age of the Antonines as a 
signal era for the world, and the Antonines had been 
emperors. In the early 'sixties a definite and powerful party 
had conspired to break the unity of the empire and the 
dignity of the kingdom, to sacrifice everything to material 
considerations, to convert a first-class monarchy into a second- 
class republic. It was not enough that the national sentiment 
should be diverted from appeals to pocket by appeals to 
patriotism ; that the gush of utilitarian cold water should be 
arrested from drowning the rekindled flames of public spirit. 
The coloured imagination of the East must also be brought 
into line with the soberer background of the West. Nor was 
the relation of the measure less weighty to Europe. Europe, 
too, must realise that India was a trust which Britain was 
resolute never to abandon. These objects Disraeli effected 
by his " Royal Titles Bill," a conception as simple as it was 
daring. " They know in India," he urged, after imploring the 
House to "remove prejudice from their minds" — "they know 
in India what this bill means, and they know that what it 
means is what they wish. . . . Let not our divisions be 
misconstrued. Let the people of India feel that there is a 
sympathetic chord between us and them, and do not let Europe 
suppose for a moment that there are any in this Hoitse who are 
not deeply conscious of the importance of our Indian Evipire. 
o 



194 DISRAELI 

Unfortunate words have been heard in the debate upon this 
subject ; but I will not believe that any member of this House 
seriously contemplates the loss of our Indian Empire. . . . 
If you sanction the passing of this bill, it will be an act, to 
my mind, that will add splendour even to her throne, and 
security even to her Empire." In a subsequent chapter I 
shall show that these ideas of sympathy with India had 
animated him while the great Mutiny was raging. 

It was Disraeli who suggested to Queen Victoria the 
propriety of learning the language and studying the literature 
of the vast domain over which she ruled, and the munshis 
summoned to instruct her, brought home to every Indian the 
conviction that her sway was one, not only of strength, but of 
sympathy and intelligence. Doubtless these policies were 
born of dreams, and of dreams which to the unreflecting 
might seem extravaganzas. But they were not merely an 
Arabian Nights' entertainment. The Monarchy, like the 
Church, in his mind were in one respect akin. The Clergy 
and the King were both " Enghsh citizens and English 
gentlemen," and yet the undue political influence of either, as 
he insisted in 1861, was to be feared, because it might diminish 
their best influence. Both make for order, and order makes 
for liberty. "... It is said sometimes that the Church of 
England is hostile to religious liberty. As well might it be 
said that the Monarchy of England is adverse to political 
freedom." 

Many of Disraeli's central ideas as to British kingship 
were partly decided by him from his boyish conversance with 
the works of Lord Bolingbroke, whose constitutional theories 
(repeated by Burke) solved the difficulty of accounting for the 
popularity of exclusiveness in the theory of government, and 
for the odiousness of that party which had once been inclusive 
and "national." Prerogative has been nowhere better defined 
than by Bolingbroke, who uniformly also declares that Parlia- 
ment is the main barrier against "the usurpation of its 
illegal, or the abuse of its legal, powers." He terms preroga- 
tive "a discretionary power in the King to act for the good 
of his people where the laws are silent ; . . . never contrary 
to law ; " and this in a passage where he protests against its 



MONARCHY 195 

being raised " one step higher ; " and he has further shown 
elsewhere how some such " barefaced, extraordinary powers " 
were welcomed by the nation in Eiizabeth's reign, because 
they were called forth by popular emergencies and used 
in a popular manner. Elizabeth, at a time before the 
Sovereign depended on Parliament, and before the Cabinet 
system was established, owed her power to her sympathy 
with her people. The first two Georges were unsym- 
pathetic, and the second abetted not only partisanship, but 
cliqueship. He became dependent on contending heads 
of greedy factions. To cure these evils was the purport of 
the " Patriot King," which inspired Disraeli as it had before 
inspired Chatham. 

It has been objected that Bolingbroke's aim was for the 
King to " defy Parliament." Nothing could be further from 
the truth. Throughout his writings he champions the rights 
of Parliament ; indeed. Parliament was his hobby. In his 
treatise on the " Patriot King," the word " Parliament " is not 
employed — it is his only essay from which it is absent — but 
the phrase " the people," that is, has been expressly defined by 
him as the whole nation in its capacities, representative as well 
as collective. It therefore includes " Parliament." In Boling- 
broke's previous "Spirit of Patriotism," he had approached 
the theme of national regeneration from the standpoint of the 
ideal citizen ; in the " Patriot King," from the standpoint of 
a throne in accord with national concurrence. Its whole pith 
is that the ideal King, governing through ministers and 
through party, should rise above and beyond them. He must 
be neither a partisan (as all the Georges proved), nor a 
puppet, nor (as Canning long afterwards repeated) " the tool 
of a confederacy," but in alliance with and reliance on the 
whole body of his subjects. The " Patriot King " is expressly 
urged " to confine instead of labouring to extend his preroga- 
tive ; " and Bolingbroke adds that such an ideal would be 
derided by his own generation. 

Of Elizabeth herself, whose great example is his perpetual 
praise, he has observed elsewhere that, " instead of struggling 
through trouble and danger to bend the constitution to any 
particular views of her own, she accommodated her notions, 



196 DISRAELI 

her views, and her whole character to it ; " and he proceeds to 
say, " a free people expects this of their prince. He is made 
for their sakes, not they for his ; " and again, " the merit of a 
wise governor is wisely to superintend the whole." He 
expresses his ideal of an impartial and democratic King in 
his " Spirit of Patriotism " as of one who should ^^ govern all 
by all" He further, in many direct passages, distinctly looks 
forward to a transference of power from caballing cliques led 
by selfish ambition, to the nation at large, and he calls on the 
King to be a truly national ruler. He desires, under changes, 
descried in the dim distance, that the " sense of the Court, the 
sense of the Parliament, and the sense of the People should be 
the same; " that the King, as he expresses it, should prove the 
" centre of the nation," and, as Disraeli has expressed it, 
should be above " class interests ; " should, in a country of 
classes, respond to every class, and favouritise none. To 
this end he harped, as did Disraeli from first to last, on 
what he admits to be a seeming solecism — a " National 
Party ; " and by this he means — as I could prove by countless 
passages — a party whose main object is national and imperial 
unity ; one that is, moreover, comprehensive instead of being 
exclusive. 

These ideas, in happier times and altered circumstances, 
passed to Disraeli. In 1859, repeating in part what he had 
affirmed of " Bolingbroke " in the Letter to Lord Lyndhurst, 
indited nearly twenty-five years earlier, he said of the 
Conservative party : "... In attempting, however humbly, to 
regulate its fortunes, I have always striven to distinguish that 
which was eternal from that which was but accidental in its 
opinions. I have always striven to assist in building it upon 
a broad and national basis, because I believed it to be a party 
peculiarly and essentially national — a party which adhered to 
the institutions of the country as embodying the national 
necessities and forming the best security for the liberty, the 
power, and the prosperity of England." 

In his Runnymede Letter to Peel of 1836, he calls on him 
to head this " national party." In his Crystal Palace oration 
of 1872, he showed that the ideal of a " Conservative" party 
seeking to preserve, adapt, and expand traditional institutions 



MONARCHY 197 

is to be national. In this striking speech, after deprecating 
that, in the days of Eldon, "... instead of the principles 
professed by Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville, and which those 
great men inherited ' from predecessors ' not less illustrious, 
the Tory system had degenerated into a policy which formed 
an adequate basis on the principles of exclusiveness and 
restriction," he urged, as he had always urged : "... The 
Tory party, unless it is a national party, is nothing. It is not 
a confederacy of nobles, it is not a democratic multitude ; it 
is a party formed from all the numerous classes in the realm — 
classes alike and equal before the law, but whose different 
conditions and different aims give vigour and variety to our 
national life." 

For the essence of these ideas, the forms which have since 
appeared or vanished — the development of the ministerial 
system, the organisation of public opinion — are immaterial. 
Of course Bolingbroke could not foresee the routine of the far 
future ; it was its spirit which he foresaw, and to which, 
through Disraeli, he contributed. In his own language about 
another, he "... had the wisdom to discern, not only the actual 
alteration which was already made, hut the growing alteration 
which would every day increased And this, too, may be 
affirmed of Disraeli. 

I think that, in the denial of Bolingbroke's real objects, 
achieved by Disraeli, some misconception has arisen from the 
constant use towards the close of the eighteenth century of 
" to govern by party connections." 

George III., a student of Bolingbroke, but a narrow abuser 
on his first trial of his doctrine, was accused of meaning to 
dispense with this watchword of oligarchs. But the quarrels 
of his time proved that what George III. really wanted was to 
dispense with one party alone, to escape from the dictation of 
a few governing families, and to choose his own ministers. 
There may be — there have been — great parties based on 
principles of disruption and contraction rather than of union 
and expansion, or parties based on principles more international 
or continental than national and British. A " national " party 
does not exclude their existence and criticism, any more than 
it does that of another "national" party taking another outlook 



198 DISRAELI 

on " general principles." What it ought more and more to 
exclude, what the monarch as the centre 'of union should 
more and more render impossible, is an anti-national group, 
and the remedy that Burke suggests for such an ailment is 
that propounded by Bolingbroke and upheld by Disraeli — the 
limited and constitutional prerogatives of the Crown — which 
should render less possible those gangs of office-mongers 
who, in Bolingbroke's phrase, pay "a private court at the 
public expense," and in Disraeli's, are " public traders of easy 
virtue." 

These ideas, shared by Bolingbroke, by Burke, by Canning, 
and by Disraeli, are no tiresome theories, but lively and 
practical issues. We too must look ahead. How far under 
modern conditions, and apart from the spasms and clamours 
of party, can the sovereign power as a force consolidating 
the Empire be strengthened, and the royal prerogatives 
wisely displayed in the light of day ? Ought a King's 
personality to prove also the means of his power .-' Time 
will show. 



CHAPTER VI 
COLONIES— EMPIRE— FOREIGN POLICY 

BEFORE Disraeli had entered public life, at a time 
when public opinion remained stagnant regarding the 
reciprocal needs and splendid future of the Mother 
Country and her children, while it was still thought 
optional whether the parent supported the offspring or the 
offspring the parent, Disraeli had pondered on the problem, 
and brought imagination to bear upon it. The colonies were 
not merely commercial acquisitions, they were the free vents 
for the surplus energy of a great race, and the nursery gardens 
of national institutions. 

In Contarini Fleming he thus muses, dreaming of things 
to come, in sight of Corcyra — 

"... There is a great difference between ancient and 
modern colonies. A modern colony is a commercial enter- 
prise, an ancient colony was a political sentiment. In the 
emigration of our citizens, hitherto, we have merely sought 
the means of acquiring tvealth ; the ancients, when their 
brethren quitted their native shores, wept and sacrificed, and 
were reconciled to the loss of their fellow-citizens solely by 
the constraint of stern necessity, and the hope that they were 
about to find easier subsistence, and to lead a more cheerful 
and commodious life. / believe that a great revolution is at 
hand in our system of colonisation, and that Europe will soon 
recur to the principles of the ancient polity T In 1836 he thus 
satirises the impending King's speech in his Runnymede 
Letter to Lord Melbourne — 

"... It will announce to us that in our colonial empire 
the most important results may speedily be anticipated from 
the discreet selection of Lord Auckland as a successor to our 

199 



200 DISRAELI 

Clives and our Hastings ; that the progressive improvement of 
the French in the manufacture of beetroot may compensate 
for the approaching destruction of our West Indian planta- 
tions ; 1 and that, although Canada is not yet independent, 
the final triumph of liberal principles, under the immediate 
patronage of the Government, may eventually console us for 
the loss of the glory of Chatham and the conquests of Wolfe." 

Once in the House of Commons, he never ceased to urge 
the claims of sentiment and the bonds of interest, while he 
enforced the necessity for cementing them by federation and 
by tarififs. In 1848, when Lord Palmerston, with his "per- 
fumed cane," was dictating a constitution to Narvaez, Disraeli, 
who on principle deprecated interference with foreign powers 
unless British interests were endangered, here supported him, 
just because he considered it a case with contingencies affect- 
ing our colonial welfare and our own prestige. It was in 
1848, too, that, descanting on the narrowing aspects of the 
Manchester School, and their " unblushing " advocacy of the 
" interests of capital," he indicted their " colonial reform with 
ruining the colonies." It was in the same year that he taxed 
the self-righteous Peelites with " turning up their noses at East 
India cotton as at everything else Colonial and Imperial." ^ 

Under Governments, of which Disraeli was the leading 
spirit, a constitution was framed for New Zealand in 1852, 
and in the summer of 1858 the colony of British Columbia 
was established. It was not more than a few months after- 
wards that disturbances arose ; and the Times, in its review 
of the year 1859, found in these elements only the " incubus" 
of ubiquitous colonies and commerce. To this standing snarl 
about "the millstone of the colonies and India" Disraeli 
adverted thirteen years afterwards, when he said : " . . . It 
has been shown with precise, with mathematical demonstration, 

^ This was realised some ten years later by the repeal of the Sugar 
Duties. 

^ The speech about Income Tax, which contains another masterly 
analysis of the displacement of labour. Previously, in 1845, he had said 
of Canada, "... I am not one of those who think that its inevitable lot 
is to become annexed to the United States. Canada has all the elements 
of a great and independent country, and is destined, I sometimes believe, 
to be the Russia of the New World." 



COLONIES 20I 

that there never was a jewel in the Crown of England that 
was so truly costly. . . . How often has it been suggested 
that we should emancipate ourselves from this incubus ! " It 
was Disraeli's Government that in the 'sixties was to con- 
federate Canada, and in the 'seventies to devise a scheme for 
confederating South Africa. In his earliest pamphlets Disraeli 
had announced that the genius of the age was one of a 
transition from the " feodal " to the " federal." In his whole 
outlook throughout he sought to reconcile the higher spirit 
of the one with the material interests of the other. And yet, 
astounding to relate, it was stated in a speech some seven 
years or so ago, that Disraeli himself had endorsed such 
melancholy and shortsighted pettiness. The sole foundation 
that I have been able to find is a stray sentence in a light 
letter to Lord Malmesbury ; just as in 1863 he made merry 
in Parliament over those who regarded the " colonial empire " 
as an " annual burden." 

This sentence, jesting of the " millstone," but sighing over 
the chance of severance, was penned in 1853 — the very year 
after the New Zealand Constitution. It was a time of 
despondency, following on fourteen years of colonial crisis. 
During it both Canada and the Cape had rebelled. The 
former's Constitution had been suspended. The repeal of the 
Sugar Duties had estranged mutinous Jamaica. Peel had been 
constrained to exclaim that in " Every one of our colonies we 
have another Ireland," and Peel was an imperialist. In a 
raw state, and in the crudity of earlier hardships, the colonies 
always clash more readily with home government than when 
the mellowing progress of experience enables them to take 
a less partial view, and to accept help in working out their 
own salvation. Moreover, the choice still lay between pure 
democracy and democracy monarchical and national. The 
democratic idea during this period was working in absolute 
detachment from the ancient institutions which should have 
been easily transplanted. In the colonies these were all in 
danger. It was difficult here to find a rallying centre for 
them there, and that difficulty was heightened by the two 
new schools of Radical thought — the older, that of the philo- 
sophical Molesworth and the utilitarian Hume, who tested 



202 DISRAELI 

policy by the criterion of immediate success ; the newer, that 
of the dry " Physical Equalitarians " of Manchester, which 
regarded Great Britain as a huge co-operative store. Disraeli 
from first to last urged the especial need in England for strong 
as well as good government. The faculties for government 
were being lessened and weakened. It was not one side only 
that despaired ; Lord John Russell himself had no faith in 
the bare democracy of the colonial feeling. And yet we 
have seen what Disraeli wrote of Lord John in The Press 
at this very period. The home example then was unpro- 
pitious for the colonies. Monarchy was yet far from 
popular. What Disraeli feared in England — what may 
still be dreaded in our midst — was the possible reaction — 
in the face of limited employment of labour and growing 
tyranny of capital — from detached democracy to moneyed 
despotism. " Nor is there " — wrote Disraeli, with pre- 
mature penetration, in The Press of March 21, 1853 — "a 
country in the world in which the reaction from democracy 
to despotism would be so sudden and so complete as in 
England, because in no other country is there the same 
timidity of capital ; and just in proportion as democratic 
progress by levelling the influences of birth elevates the 
influences of money, does it create a power that would at 
at any time annihilate liberty — if liberty were brought into 
opposition with the three-per-cents." The effects of this 
fermenting leaven both in England and among her colonies 
had to be weighed ; and Disraeli many years afterwards 
avowed in a speech that for a moment he too had wavered. 
That moment was the one of this passing phrase. But it stood 
for a phase as momentary. Disraeli, like Strepsiades in the 
Attic burlesque, had only " mislaid his cloak, not lost it." ^ 
Ten years later he could advocate our colonial empire with 
effect and authority. The colonies had become — as the 
Crown had become — a popular institution, and a requisite 
for the fresh air, fresh vents, and fresh health of an expanding 
population cramped by now overcrowded towns. They might 
still prove a recruiting ground for labour. Peel's adoption of 
the ** physical happiness " principle, which postulates unlimited 

' " 'A\A.' ovk a,iro\<Ji)\€K'' aWa Kara'Ke<bp6vTMa" 



COLONIES 203 

employment of industry, had not settled that problem by his 
" liberation of commerce." And, as Disraeli pointed out in 
1873, if it were only to be settled by natural forces, the 
" unlimited employment " of labour made for the erasement 
of the national idea. To the theoretic Radical, however, the 
colonies, like all our institutions, were still obstacles. "... To 
him the colonial empire is only an annual burden. To him 
corporation is an equivalent term for monopoly, and endow- 
ment for privilege. ..." 

Together with Disraeli's name, in the mention of early 
colonial aspirations, that of the then Sir E. Bulwer Lytton 
should assuredly be commemorated. He, too, treated colonial 
concerns, during his brief period of secretaryship, with firm- 
ness, insight, and adroitness. Nor should it be forgotten that 
between the two was a link of romantic imagination as well 
as of long-standing friendship. Years before, they had both 
contributed to the New Monthly Magazine. Both were men 
of striking originality, untempered by a public school educa- 
tion ; and it is amusing to note that the fantastic strain, 
enabling both to view the prospect spaciously, and censured 
as *' un-English " ^ in Disraeli — often when he was really quot- 
ing from our classics ^ — was only criticised as " extravagant " 
in Lytton, or, at a later period, as "ornate" in Lord Leighton. 
Both were students and interpreters of Bolingbroke. They 
had each the faculty of regarding history as a whole, and from 
a high vantage-ground, instead of perverting their vision of 
progress by the paltry rancours of the moment. Such an 
instinct is invaluable in attaching new settlements to the nest 
of their nurture. 

1 It will be remembered that in Coningsby " Rigby's " election speech 
called everything with which he disagreed " un-English." Dickens's 
satire of the misuse of " un-English " in the person of " Podsnap " may 
be compared. 

2 " Light and leading," which Disraeli employed long before the 
famous letter to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, in a speech of 1858, 
comes of course from Burke. His theory of the House of Lords in 
1861 as "an intermediate body" is derived from Bolingbroke and 
Burke. " Peace with honour " he employed in one of his Crimean 
speeches. Many of his phrases were derived from the works of his 
father. 



204 DISRAELI 

In 1863, summarising the aspirations of Conservatism, he 
spoke of " our colonial empire, which is the national estate, 
that assures to every subject, ... as it were, a freehold, and 
which gives to the energies and abilities of Englishmen an 
inexhaustible theatre." He was swift to discern the bearing 
of crucial alterations in America on the colonies. In 1864, 
while the civil conflict was raging in the United States, he 
urged, regarding them : "... What is the position of the 
colonies and dependencies of her Majesty in that country > 
Four years ago, when the struggle broke out, there was very 
little in common between them. The tie that bound them to 
this cotmtry was almost one of formality ; but what has been 
the consequence of this great change in North America ? You 
have now a powerful federation with the element of nationality 
strongly evinced in it. They count their population by millions, 
and they are conscious that they have a district more fertile 
and an extent of territory equal to the unappropriated reserves 
of the United States. These are the elements and prognostics 
of new influences that have changed the character of that 
country. Nor is it without reason that they do not feel less 
of the ambition which characterises new communities than 
the United States, and that they may become, we will say, 
the ' Russia of the New World! ... If from considerations 
of expense we were to quit the possessions that we now occupy 
in North America, it would be ultimately, as regards our 
resources and wealth, as fatal a step as could possibly be 
taken. Our prosperity would not long remain a consolation, 
and we might then prepare for the invasion of our country and 
the subjection of the peopled And he next insisted on the need 
of Canada's adequate defence, saying that while we would 
not force our connection on any dependency, yet, finding our 
colonies now asserting the principle of their nationality, "... 
and . . . foreseeing a glorious future, . . . still depending on 
the faithful and affectionate assistance of England, it would 
be the most short-sighted and suicidal policy to shrink from 
the duty that Providence has called upon us to fulfil." In 
1866, again, he advocated colonial interests in Parliament, 
and, by a fine phrase, warned us to " . . . recollect that Eng- 
land is the metropolis of a colonial empire; that she is at the 



COLONIES 205 

head of a vast number of colonies, the majority of which are 
yearly increasing in wealth ; and that every year these colonies 
send back to these shores their capital and their intelligence in 
the persons of distinguished men, who are naturally anxious that 
these interests should be represented in the House of Commons." 

But it was in 1872 that Disraeli first propounded a 
colonial policy which was the sum of many previous pro- 
nouncements, and is even now being pondered, and not by 
one party alone. He recognised that a united empire implies 
a united nation ; that, as he always maintained, Parliament 
represents national opinion, and that colonial opinion and 
sentiment at last formed part of it, 

" Gentlemen," urged Disraeli, " there is another and second 
great object of the Tory party. If the first is to maintain the 
institutions of the country, the second is, in my opinion, to 
uphold the empire of England. If you look to the history of 
this country since the advent of Liberalism — forty years ago — 
you will find that there has been no effort, so continuous, so 
subtle, supported by so much energy, and carried on with so 
much ability and acumen, as the attempts of Liberalism 
to effect tJie disintegration of the empire of England. States- 
men of the highest character, writers of the most distinguished 
ability, the most organised and efficient means have been 
employed in this endeavour. It has been proved to all of us 
that we have lost money by our colonies." Alluding next to 
the " incubus " in the passage I have already cited, he thus 
frankly continues : . . . " Well, that result was nearly accom- 
plished when these subtle views were adopted by the country, 
under the plausible plea of granting self-government to the 
colonies. I confess that I myself thought that the tie was 
broken. Not that I, for one, object to self-government. I 
cannot conceive how our distant colonies can have their 
affairs administered except by self-government. But self- 
government, in my opinion, ought to have been conceded, as 
part of a great policy of imperial consolidation. It ought to 
have been accompanied by an imperial tariff, by securities for the 
people of England for the enjoyment of the unappropriated lands 
which belonged to the sovereign as their trustee, and by a 
military code which should have precisely defined the means and 



2o6 DISRAELI 

the responsibilities by which the colonies should be defended} 
and by which, if necessary, the country should call for aid from 
the colonies themselves. It ought further to have been accom- 
panied by the institution of some representative council in the 
metropolis, which tvould have brought the colonies into constant 
and continuous relations with the home Governmetit. All this, 
however, was omitted because those who advised that policy— 
and I believe their convictions were sincere — looked upon the 
colonies of England, looked even upon our connection with 
India, as a burden upon this country, viewing everything in a 
financial aspect, and totally passing by those moral and political 
considerations which make nations great, and by the influence of 
which alonemen are distinguished from animals^ 

Here we have a foreseeing and a far-seeing policy. Not 
a point of this forecast but has engaged, or will soon engage, 
national attention. With what courage and sagacity did 
Disraeli hand on the torch of Bolingbroke, who, first of English 
statesmen, had emphasised the significance of Gibraltar, who 
foretold England's mission as " a Mediterranean power," ^ and 
pictured her then scanty colonies as so many " home farms " ! 
None can now doubt the sagacity ; and if any doubt the 
courage, they have only to peruse the warnings of that 
commercial Cassandra, Mr. Bright, who, during the manu- 
factured reaction of 1879, unconsciously justified DisraeH's 
predictions of seven years before. After cataloguing his 
" annexations " like an auctioneer, he thus proceeded to stir 
passion and impute motives — 

"... All this adds to your burdens. Just listen to this : 
they add to the burdens, not of the empire, but of the 
33,000,000 of people who inhabit Great Britain and Ireland. 
We take the burden and pay the charge. This policy may 
lend a seeming glory to the Crown, and it may give scope 
for patronage and promotion, and pay a pension to a limited 
and favoured class. But to you, the people, it brings expendi- 
ture of blood and treasure, increased debts and taxes, and 
adds risk of war in every part of the globe." 

^ He had in an earlier speech considered this question with regard to 
Canada. 

2 This very phrase was repeated by Lord Beaconsfield in 1876, 



COLONIES 207 

Is sense more conspicuous than charity in this onslaught ? 
Has it not been proved penny wise, pound foolish ? Could a 
better instance be adduced of a contrast between England 
as an emporium and Great Britain as a united empire ? ^ 
In many respects I honour Mr. Bright. He at least had the 
courage of his honest convictions. He was against war 
altogether ; but in being so he opposed the instincts of rising 
nationalities and tried to lull Great Britain into a fool's 
paradise of international exhibitions. It is now asserted that 
Russia could not advance through Persia to India without a 
bristling series of bayonets. This is not to be wished, but is 
it to be feared ? Of " Peace at any price," Disraeli said with 
truth — and truth in the interests of general peace — that it was 
a " dangerous doctrine, which had done more mischief and 
caused more wars than the most ruthless conquerors." What 
happened ? Mr. Bright at a bound converted Mr. Gladstone. 
It was a mutual necessity. Neither of them without the 
other could have swayed the commercial classes and " the 
lower middles." Mr. Gladstone was Don Quixote ; Mr. Bright, 
Sancho Panza. Mr. Gladstone appealed to the nation ; Mr. 
Bright, with sincere power and definite ideals, to a class. Mr. 
Gladstone appealed to the customs and institutions which he 
heroically assailed ; Mr. Bright attacked more directly and 
without even the show of sympathy. Here Mr. Gladstone 
was Girondin ; Mr. Bright, Jacobin. Mr. Gladstone's conviction 
of being "the legate of the skies," his electric temperament, 
devout genius, practical fervour and " connection," both ideal- 
ised and popularised the doggedness and the narrowness of Mr. 
Bright's democratic doctrine. But Mr. Bright was consistent. 
He was against any fight for united nationality. He would 
never have embarked on war at all, and so could never have 
withdrawn from struggle at the wrong moment. He never 
deluded himself or others. It might be said that the author of 
the essay on " Church and State " led the " Nonconformist con- 
science " to the altar, and that the eloquent denouncer both 
of Church and State gave the bride away. But the chivalrous 
knight- errant could not quite forego the Dulcinea of his youth. - 

1 This point is admirably elucidated by Mr. Ewald in his " Life and 
Times of Lord Beaconsfield." 



2o8 DISRAELI 

It will be remembered that Mr. Gladstone, still by inadvertence, 
used occasionally to stumble upon the word " empire " in his 
speeches. Peel himself had called it " wonderful " ! Lord 
John Russell had employed it in 1855. It was a word born 
with Queen Elizabeth, and familiar throughout the reign of 
Queen Anne. Chatham's clarion rang with it. The poet 
Cowper, whom none can accuse of egotism or of bombast, 
repeats it with a glow of pride. But Mr. Bright, unless I mis- 
take, never condescended to breathe the name or condone the 
thing. Mr. Gladstone regained power, and ran riot — the riot of 
the best intentions in the worst sense of the phrase. The 
policy of " scuttle " ensued — from what motives I stop not here 
to inquire. We abandoned Kandahar, " annexed " through a 
need caused by past vacillations and repulses of the Ameer ; 
but, together with conditions for rendering him independent of 
Russia's natural intrigues. We abandoned it just when the 
disasters of the Soudan again invited Russian encroachment. 
We abandoned the Transvaal at the first blush of defeat. 
" Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform " culminated in war, extra- 
vagance, and confusion. The trumpeters of impolitic economy, 
proposing expenditure and yet dangling the repeal of some 
tax to gratify "the interests or prejudices of the party of 
retrenchment," were, in Disraeli's phrase of 1861, "penurious 
prodigals." Upright " prigs and pedants," intruding private 
opinions on public affairs, honest hypocrites who deceived 
themselves and hoped to persuade the sceptics of the world, 
preachers of theories to the winds, all played with crucial issues 
and trifled solemnly with a cynical Continent. The school- 
master was abroad. We took Egypt against our will, and 
promised not to retain it. We cried, " Hands off, Austria ! " 
and apologised for doing so. We prepared for necessitating 
the most exceptional war of modern times. It was the policy 
of panic and disunion, the policy of alternate weakness and 
bluster, the policy that by turns coaxed and coerced Ireland, 
allured and abandoned Gordon ; it was a policy of private 
magnanimity at the public expense, and not the policy of 
wise consolidation and calculated outlets. It was not the 
policy of diplomacies at once instructed, firm, and gentle. Nor 
was it one of defined spheres, regulated boundaries, and 



EMPIRE AND FOREIGN POLICY 209 

fortified " gates of empire." Yet it led us to " expenditure of 
blood and treasure." And if we have since — and not, as I 
believe, in the spirit or with the precautions of Disraeli — 
been forced to retrace our steps, it is due to these retail 
maxims of Mr. Bright, and not to the wholesale creed of Lord 
Beaconsfield. 

But the temper of his " Imperialism," whatever may have 
been momentarily suspected or sneered at, was never aggres- 
sive, and always deliberate. It was for defence, not defiance ; 
it was no grandiose illusion, no gaudy show of spurious glory ; 
no froth or fuss of sound and fury signifying nothing. 

" ''Twas not the hasty project of a day, 
But the well-ripened fruit of wise delay P 

It ran utterly counter, as he declared in 1862, to " that turbulent 
diplomacy which distracts the mind of a people from internal 
improvement." Just as internally his statesmanship guarded 
against the predominance of any particular class, so extern- 
ally the only ground for British intervention was for him the 
undue predominance of a particular power against English 
or the general interests. Throughout he sought what Lord 
Castlereagh had also attempted, the solidarity of Europe. No 
doubt, like all great men of action, he made mistakes and 
committed errors. He owned as much himself. But I believe 
that history will justify the height from which he sur- 
veyed the scene, his reach and sweep of vision, the depth, 
too, of an insight piercing far below the surface. In one 
respect at least he may be said to have resembled Napoleon 
— "his vast and fantastic conception of policy." I do not 
deny that he wished to strike the imagination ; I do not deny 
that occasionally the direct response may have missed fire ; 
but I submit that on the whole his policy was right, that 
its final effects rarely disappointed intention, and that it has 
left pregnant and abiding results. His aim was what the 
late Lord Salisbury afterwards declared as his own, to " resume 
the thread of our ancient empire ; " and, as Macaulay has 
remarked of George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, who was also 
twitted with inconsistency : " . . . Through a long public life, 
and through frequent and violent changes of public feeling, 



210 DISRAELI 

he almost invariably took that view of the great questions of 
his time v/hich history has finally adopted." At home on 
leading issues he had strengthened the power of Government 
by representing worthy opinion, and by renewing the affection 
of the people for their institutions in the struggle to maintain 
united English nationality against disruptive forces. It was 
reserved for him to reawaken the slumbering sense of what 
had once been an arousing reality — the duties of an august 
empire over many associated races and religions, the due 
greatness of Great Britain, the high destinies and ennobling 
burdens of an ancient nation appointed to rule the seas. 

The keynote was sounded in that very speech of 1862, 
when he repeated what he had often before objected to the 
robust Lord Palmerston's frequently flustering methods, but 
added that "... we should be vigilant to guard and prompt 
to vindicate the honour of the country. On an earlier 
occasion, he laid stress on the diplomatic duty of "... if 
necessary, saying rough things kindly, and not kind things 
roughly ; " while from first to last, however, as head of oppo- 
sition, he disapproved a foreign policy which landed us in 
superfluous engagements, he always supported the Govern- 
ment when the crisis became really national. In 1864, criti- 
cising the Palmerstonian management of the Danish imbroglio, 
he remarked : "... I am not for war. I can contemplate 
with difficulty the combination of circumstances which can 
justify war in the present age unless the honoiw of the country 
is likely to suffer" 

Two more of his ruling principles were, first, that the 
ripe moment is half the battle in national attitude towards 
distant complications ; and second, the importance, under our 
system, of distinguishing between what a minister, backed 
by a large parliamentary majority, decides in home and 
in foreign affairs. His prescient criticisms on both the 
source and the course of the Crimean War illustrate the 
one ; his deliverance, in a speech of May, 1855 — a speech 
prescribing a most statesmanlike policy towards both Russia 
and Turkey, part only of which ^ he was able more than 

' Chiefly that of the Turkish frontier in Europe, and of the Russian 
in Asia. 



EMPIRE AND FOREIGN POLICY 211 

twenty years later to execute, the other : " . . . A minister 
may, by the aid of a parliamentary majority, support 
unjust laws, and ... a political system which a quarter of a 
century afterwards may, by the aid of another parliamentary 
majority, be condemned. The passions, the prejudices, and 
the party spirit that flourish in a free country may support 
and uphold him. . . . But when you come to foreign politics 
things are very different. Every step that you take is an 
irretrievable one. . . . You cannot rescind your policy. . . . 
If you make a mistake in foreign affairs ; if you enter into 
unwise treaties ; ... if the scope and tendency of your 
foreign system are founded on a want of information or false 
information, . . . there is no majority in the House of 
Commons which can long uphold a Government under such 
circumstances. It will not make a Government strong, but 
it will make this House weak. . . ." 

Throughout, his policy was that of confederation, not 
annexation ; of " scientific frontiers " safeguarding ascertained 
" spheres of influence ; " of binding, not loosing ; of a strong 
front but a soft mien ; of persuasion, if possible, rather than 
compulsion — as he always recommended in framing measures 
to protect labour and improve society ; of a straight line 
steadfastly pursued, instead of wobble, worry, and flurry ; 
first beating the air, and then — a retreat ; at once headstrong 
and weak-kneed. Although his "Imperialism" was by no 
means that which has occasionally since usurped the name, 
assuredly, in upholding the burden of Great Britain's destiny, 
he would never have recoiled from "the too vast orb of her 
fate." Disraeli's imperialism was not the bastard and braggart 
sort that he once styled " rowdy rhetoric ; " nor the official sort 
to which he sarcastically alluded when Lord Palmerston, in 
1855, took credit for accepting Lord John Russell's resignation, 
and was " ready to stand or fall by him : " " The noble Lord 
is neither standing nor falling, but, on the contrary, he has 
remained sitting on the Treasury bench." Associated with 
it, lay a deep sense of obligation in the choice of high character, 
ability, and spirit to carry it out ; the sense too that a momen- 
tary mistake should never sacrifice excellent proconsuls to 
the " hare-brained chatter of irresponsible frivolity ; " the 



212 DISRAELI 

resolve also never to shirk responsibility by making scape- 
goats. And, beyond all, a feeling that in dealing even with 
semi-barbarous nations, it was neither magnanimous, wise, 
nor dignified to crush them utterly, and that their feelings, 
prejudices, and customs ought to be respected. 

Perhaps no better example could be given than his attitude 
regarding the events of 1879 in South Africa. The Zulus 
had threatened and harassed an impoverished and resource- 
less Transvaal. The Transvaal had requested and obtained 
" annexation " from Great Britain. But the Zulu chief, 
irritated by the suppression of the " suzerainty " arrogated 
by him over the Boer lands, began to beset the Natal 
borders. The Governor of Natal was for appeasing them. 
Sir Bartle Frere, however, that commanding High Com- 
missioner of South Africa, took an opposite view, and favoured 
a course unmistakable for weakness. In his conferences 
with Cetchwayo he made requisitions, on his own initiative, 
exceeding his instructions from home. The result was war, 
with the disaster of Isandhlwana, the rally of Rorke's Drift, 
and eventual success. During March the matter was brought 
before the House of Lords in a form arranged to censure the 
Government policy, but so worded as to restrict the debate 
to the advisability of Sir Bartle Frere's recall on the ground 
of his unauthorised ultimatum. 

Disraeli's speech is worthy of close attention, if only 
because it forecasts the ultimate federation of South Africa. 
Disraeli defended Sir Bartle on the score that to succeed 
in impugning error, if error it was, of a distinguished public 
servant chosen by the Crown, was to impugn its prerogative. 
" Great services are not cancelled by one act or one single error, 
however^ it may be regretted at the moment. If he had been 
recalled ... in deference to the panic, the thoughtless panic 
of the hour, in deference to those who have no responsibility 
in the matter, and who have not weighed well and deeply 
investigated all the circumstances and all the arguments . . . 
which . . . must be appealed to to influence our opinions in 
such questions — no doubt a certain degree of odium might 
have been diverted from the heads of her Majesty's ministers, 
and the world would have been delighted, as it always is, to 



EMPIRE AND FOREIGN POLICY 213 

find a victim. . . . We had only one course to pursue, ... to 
take care that at this most critical period . . . affairs ... in 
South Africa should be directed by one, not only qualified to 
direct them, but who was superior to any other individual 
whom we could have selected for the purpose." 

It would be a bad precedent, he resumed, for the safety of 
the empire if an exceptional indiscretion were to efface a long 
record of signal ability ; and he drew to the recollection of the 
House ^ the case of Sir James Hudson at Turin, whose conduct 
had been similarly attacked, and whom he, as the leader of the 
Opposition, had refused to make a party question, and had 
himself then defended on the same public considerations. 
But adverting to policy, he used these weighty words — 

"... Sir Bartle Frere was selected by the noble Lord 
(Carnarvon) . . . chiefly to secure one great end — namely, to 
carry out that policy of CONFEDERATION in South Africa which 

^ A most interesting collection might be made of Disraeli's ready and 
fluent illustration by precedents. For of precedent his memory was quite 
as retentive as Gladstone's. In his famous Address to the Crown of 1864, 
he was sharply blamed for referring to " the just influence of England 
being lowered " in the extraordinary tangle of alternate brag and whimper 
that attended the Government's action in the Danish embroilment. This 
language was solemnly declared " unprecedented since the great days of 
the Norths and the Foxes." ■ But Disraeli instantly proved that Fox 
himself had used language in his own Address far more violent and 
censorious of the Ministry in 1846. So, again, on at least two occasions 
when the phrases " political morality " and " political infamy " were 
bandied for partisan purposes, he effectively hurled back the taunts in the 
teeth of their inventor^, and refuted present profession by past conduct. 
When Palmerston again twitted him, in 1846, he received a reminder 
which brought home the jaunty service of seven successive Administra- 
tions, and all this, though he never attacked small game, and never any 
" unless he had been first assailed.'' In the earlier numbers of The Press 
are many most interesting historical instances of how " principles " may 
be confused with " measures," when the latter have to be relinquished in 
office from the practical duty of carrying on the Government, while at 
the same time the former can be developed in other directions when 
the national condemnation of the particular measure is deliberate. So Fox 
had acted towards Catholic emancipation, Russell towards the Appropria- 
tion Bill, the Whigs in the 'forties towards the Income Tax, and Disraeli 
in 1852 towards "Protection." So, he argued in many previous utter- 
ances, the principle must now be followed by relieving the land, now 
placed under unfair conditions of competition, of its burdens. 



214 DISRAELI 

the noble Lord had carried out on a previous occasion with 
regard to the North American colonies. 

"If there is any policy which, in my mind, is opposed to 
the policy of annexation, it is that of confederation. By pur- 
suing the policy of confederation, we bind states together, we 
consolidate their resoiLrces, and we enable them to establish a 
strong frontier ; that is the best security against annexation. 
I myself regard a policy of annexation with great distrust. I 
believe that the reasons of state which induced us to annex the 
Transvaal were not, on the whole, perfectly sound. But what 
were these circumstances ? . . . The Transvaal was a terri- 
tory which was no longer defended by its occupiers. . . , The 
annexation of that province was . . . a geographical necessity. 

" But the ' annexation ' of the Transvaal was one of the 
reasons why those who were connected with that province 
might have calculated upon the permanent existence of Zulu- 
land as an independent state. I know it is said that, when 
we are at war, as we unfortunately now are, with the Zulus, 
or any other savage nation, even though we inflicted upon 
them some great disaster, and might effect an arrangement 
with them of a peaceable character, before long the same 
power would again attack us, unless we annexed the terri- 
tory. / have never considered that a legitimate argumejit in 
favour of annexation of a barbarous country. . . . Similar results 
might occur in Europe if we went to war with one of our 
neighbours. . . . But is that an argume^it why we should not 
hold our hand tmtil we have completely crushed otir adversary, 
and is that any reason why we should pursue a policy of exter- 
mination with regard to a barbarous nation with whom we 
happen to be at war i That is a policy which I hope will never 
be sanctioned by this House. 

" It is, of course, possible that we may again be involved 
in war with the Zulus ; but it is an equal chance that in the 
development of circumstances in that part of the world, the 
Zulu people may have to invoke the aid and the alliance of 
England against some other people, and that the policy 
dictated by feelings and influence which have regulated our 
conduct with regard to European states, may be successfully 
pursued with regard to less civilised nations in a different 



EMPIRE AND FOREIGN POLICY 215 

part of the world. This is the policy of her Majesty's Govern- 
ment, and therefore they cannot be in favour of a policy of 
annexation, because it is directly opposed to it. , . ." 

The same considerations, those of settled and settling 
limits — considerations, let me repeat, directly opposed to a 
vague and wavering policy fraught with encroachments, 
alarm, and haphazard embroilment — were to actuate his 
policy towards Afghanistan during 1879, into the vexed 
details of which I shall not now enter, though they might 
be reviewed with instruction ; the policy, too, that recognised 
that English vacillation would at once be magnified into 
weakness throughout the bazaars of the Orient.^ 

The " insane annexation " of that fortress-citadel, Kan- 
dahar, it has often been objected, was the most vulner- 
able of Disraeli's schemes. There are many entitled to 
respect who still hold that it was rightly and profitably 
rescinded. Moreover, the tragic sequel of the heroic Cava- 
gnari's death prejudiced the public. But the chain of events 
which required, the conciliatory conditions which accompanied 
it, and the true causes, or pretexts, for its annulment with 
virulence, should be carefully remembered. A former ViccT 
roy's mistake in rebuffing the friendly overtures of the 
Afghans, the Muscovite move forward in Central Asia, while 
war was in the air, the consequent intrigues at Cabul, per- 
turbed by dynastic broils — these were some of the warrants for 
its necessity. Fresh Russian manoeuvres and advances, owing 
to a fatally feeble policy in the Soudan, were parts of the 
lever for its relinquishment. The highest military authorities 

^ Of Disraeli's Indian policy this much may here be noted. While 
allowing Russia to expand where she was entitled or compelled by war, or 
allowed by opening intrigues, he wished to baffle her as against Great 
Britain. 

(i) By an independent Afghanistan, with a proper frontier and its 
Indian " gates " barred. 

(2) By preventing Russia through Turkestan's approaches to Afghan 

and Persia's eastern border. 

(3) By precluding her from Persia's western border through the regions 

of the Euphrates Valley, {a) through making Turkey compact in 
Asia (Erzeroum and Bayazid) ; {b) through Cyprus guarding the 
Mediterranean approaches. 



2i6 DISRAELI 

sanctioned it at the time, though other high military authorities 
disapproved a few years later. But when it is borne in mind 
that Disraeli's previous occupation of Quetta, the key both 
to Kandahar and the Pishin valley, is now a large canton- 
ment, that a railway is ready to be laid to within no great 
distance of Kandahar itself on any fresh emergency, it may 
well be pondered whether Disraeli was mistaken, and whether 
time has not confounded the triflers who caricatured him as a 
music-hall singer, with the refrain — 

" I wear a jewel in my cap — 

Kandahar, Kandahar." 

It was no mere question of a "buffer" state. It formed 
a weighty part of his great and pacific project for safeguard- 
ing the " gates " of our Indian Empire. Of the three main 
approaches then open to Russia — entitled in her own 
interests to use them, as he always admitted — the south- 
eastern limits of Afghanistan command the long high-road 
which leads to the distant north-western borders and the 
" gate " of Herat. Moreover, they dominate one of the im- 
portant trade routes to Northern India. The remote side of 
the Indus can thus be used as a protection agjainst the remoter 
side of the Oxus. At the same time, Disraeli subsidised the 
Afghans, and when their Ameer, under Russian influence, in- 
sulted our envoy, treated them at first " like spoiled children." 
His aim was — as always in his whole policy — a compact 
independence. " Both in the East and West," he observed, 
" 02ir object is to have prosperous, happy, and contented neigh- 
bours. But these are things which cannot be done in a day. 
You cannot settle them as you would pay a morning visit." 
He was building the foundations for a lasting peace. At 
any rate, the rectified frontier, which as he pointed out could 
be held by five thousand men, while a " haphazard " frontier 
demanded twenty times that number, is unimpugned. Nor 
should those who speak of a smoothed Ameer and an un- 
ruffled Cabul, after Kandahar was evacuated, forget that, since 
Merv has become Russian, the old dynastic intrigues and 
tribe feuds may, one day, readily recur at Cabul, fresh oppor- 
tunities encourage Russia, and a reoccupation of this cancelled 
coign of vantage become imperative. " The science of 



INDIA 217 

politics," as Macaulay well says, " is an experimental science." 
Disraeli excelled most statesmen in his intuitive grasp of 
Indian affairs. Peel himself, shortly before his death, pro- 
phesied that Disraeli, "when his hour struck," would be 
" Governor-General of India." 

The same principles, as will appear, prompted the masterly 
and masterful Treaty of Berlin. The same, caused him to 
exclaim of Russia, whose designs he had thwarted in India 
and foiled at Constantinople, in memorable language, that in 
Asia there was " room enough " for her and for us ; yet that, 
though in the face of possible conflict, she was entitled to 
equip her expedition of courtesy to "cool the hoofs of its 
horses in the waters of the Oxus," she must be induced to 
withdraw it by our own counter-preventions. But what I 
wish here particularly to illustrate is, the psychological point 
of respect for and reckoning with the habits, wants, and tradi- 
tions of other or alien civilisations. It rested on an idea 
familiar to his youth, and which he thus expressed in a soli- 
loquy of Alroy : "Universal empire must not be founded 
on sectarian principles and exclusive rights. . . . Something 
must be done to bind the conquered to our conquering 
fortunes." 

It was signally evinced in his treatment — his exceptional 
treatment when Opposition leader — of the Indian Mutiny. 
At that time Disraeli alone seemed to grasp the signifi- 
cance of the outbreak in its initial stage, which was viewed as 
a mere military rebellion, and regarded as lightly, and with 
as little reason, as the beginnings of the Boer War. 

" It is remarkable," he urged, before the crisis became 
recognised, " how insignificant incidents at the first blush have 
appeared which have proved to be pregnant with momentous 
consequences. A street riot in Boston and at Paris^ turned 
out to be the two great revolutions of modern times. Who 
would have supposed when we first heard of the rude visit of a 
Russian sailor from a port in the Black Sea to Constantinople, 
that we were on the eve of a critical war and the solution 
of the most difiicult of modern problems?" It was, he con- 
tended, a national revolt, not a military mutiny. In our 
policy of the immediate past we had forcibly destroyed 



2i8 DISRAELI 

native authority for the sole object of increasing revenue. 
" In spite of the law of adoption, which was the very corner- 
stone of Hindoo society, when a native prince died without 
natural heirs, though a son had been adopted as a successor, 
the Government of India annexed his dominions. Sattara, 
Berar, Jeitpore, Sumbulpore, Jhansi, were monuments of 
' nefarious ' acquisition. And Oude, of ' a wholesale system 
of spoliation,' for it had been annexed even without the 
pretext of a lawful failure of heirs," 

We had also disturbed the settlement of property by " a 
new system of government." He analysed the popular law 
of adoption as the basis of Hindoo property, and as contrasted 
with its misuse in the hands of princes as a source of succes- 
sion. He gave many instances, distinguishing each. " What 
man was safe, what feudatory, what freeholder who had not 
a child of his own loins, was safe throughout India .-'... The 
Government determined to exact all it could, not only from 
princes, but from the people." The exemptions from the land 
tax — " the whole taxation of the State " — had, under pretences, 
been continually taken away. The resumption of estates in 
Bengal alone had yielded the Government half a million of 
revenue ; in Bombay alone ;^37o,ooo a year. Moreover, 
hereditary pensions had been commuted into personal an- 
nuities. These disturbances had naturally fomented these 
discontents. 

We had, moreover, tampered with the Hindoo religion. 
"... I think a very great error exists as to the assumed 
prejudice of Hindoos with regard to what is called missionary 
enterprise. The fact is that . . . the Indian population 
generally, with the exception of the Mussulmans, are 
educated in a manner which peculiarly disposes them to 
theological inquiries. . . . They are a most ancient race ; 
they have a mass of tradition on these subjects ; a complete 
Indian education is to a great degree religious ; their laws, 
their tenure of land depend upon religion ; and there is no 
race in the world better armed at all points for theological 
discussion. . . . Add to this, that they can always fall back 
upon an educated priesthood prepared to supply them with 
arguments and illustrations. . . . But what the Hindoo does 



INDIA 219 

regard ivith suspicion is the tmion of missionary enterprise 
zvith the political power of the Government. With that power 
he associates only one idea, violence. ... It appears to me 
that the legislative council of India has, under the new 
principle, been constantly nibbling at the religious system of 
the natives." It had tried to adapt Western systems to 
Oriental habits. In its theoretical system of national educa- 
tion the " sacred Scriptures had suddenly appeared in the 
schools ; and you cannot persuade the Hindoos that those 
holy books have appeared there without the concurrence and 
the secret sanction of the Government." Systematic female 
education, again, had been commanded — a most unwise 
step, considering " the peculiar ideas entertained by Hindoos 
with regard to women." But two acts had even more con- 
tributed to the ferment of native feeling. The first, that no 
man who changed his religion should be deprived of his 
inheritance. That struck at the main purpose of property in 
India, which consists in being a sacred trust for religious 
objects. The second, that a Hindoo widow might marry 
again, ''which is looked upon by all as an outrage on their 
faith," uncalled for, and fraught with alarm. 

But the main blunder had been the annexation of Oude 
without excuse, and executed in such a manner that for the 
first time the Mahometan princes felt that they had an 
identity of interest with the Indian rajahs. "... You see 
how the plot thickens. . . . Men of difi'erent races and different 
religions . . . traditionary feuds and long and enduring pre- 
judices with all the elements to produce segregation, become 
united — Hindoos, Mahrattas, Mahommedans— secretly feeling 
a common interest and a common cause." Princes and pro- 
prietors are against you. " Estates as well as musnuds are in 
danger. You have an active society spread all over India, 
alarming the ryot, the peasant, respecting his religious faith. 
Never mind on this head what were your intentions ; the 
question is, what were their thoughts — what their inferences f " 
And a further aggravation had resulted. The Oude sepoy, 
who was a yeoman, had recruited the Bengal army. " Robbed 
of his country and deprived of his privileges, he schemed 
and plotted, and sent mysterious symbols from village to 



220 DISRAELI 

village, which prepared the native mind," agitated by princes 
deposed, religion insulted, soldiery discontented, for an 
occasion and pretext " to overthow the British yoke." " The 
Mutiny was no more a sudden impulse, than the income tax 
was a sudden impulse. It was the result of careful combinations, 
vigilant and well-organised, on the watch for opportunity. . . . 
I will not go into the question of the new cartridges. ... I 
do not suppose any one . . . will believe that because the 
cartridges were believed to be, or were pretended to be 
believed to be, greased with pig's or cow's fat, that was the 
cause of this insurrection. The decline and fall of empires 
are not affairs of greased cartridges. Such results are occasioned 
by adequate causes and by an accumulation of adequate causes!* 

And now what remedies would meet such emergencies } 
Force, it was agreed, must now be employed. The force 
proposed was inadequate. " There should be an advance from 
Calcutta through Bengal, and an expedition up the Indus. 
The Militia should be called out. An Empire, not a Cabinet, 
was in danger." 

"... But to my mind that is not all that we ought to 
look to. Even if we do vindicate our authority with complete 
success — revenge the insults that we have received, rebuild 
the power that has been destroyed . . . although we will 
assert with the highest hand our authority, although we will 
not rest until our unquestioned supremacy and predominance 
are acknowledged, . . . it is not merely as avengers that we 
appear. / think that the great body of the population of that 
country ought to know that there is for them a future of hope. 
I think we ought to temper justice with mercy—justice the most 
severe with mercy the most indulgent. . . . Neither internal 
nor external peace can in India," he urged, "be secured by 
British troops alone. There must be no more annexation, no 
more conquest. ... It is totally impossible that you can 
ever govern 1 50,000,000 of men in India by merely European 
agency. You must meet that difficulty boldly and completely. 
. . . You ought at once . . . to tell the people of India that 
the relation between them and their real ruler and sovereign, 
Queen Victoria, shall be drawn nearer. You must act upon 
the opinion of India on that subject immediately ; and you 



INDIA 221 

can only act upon the opinion of Eastern nations through their 
imagination. You ought to have a Royal Commission sent by 
the Queen from this country to India immediately, to inquire 
into the grievances of the various classes of that population. 
You ought to issue a royal proclamation to the people of 
India, declaring that the Queen of England is not a sovereign 
who will countenance the violation of treaties . . . that she 
. . . will respect their laws, their usages, their customs, and, 
above all, their religion. Do this, and do this not in a corner, 
but in a mode and manner which will attract universal attention, 
and excite the general hope of Hindostan in the Queens name 
and with the Queen's authority. If that be done, simultaneously 
with the arrival of your forces, you may depend upon it that 
your military advance will be facilitated, and, I believe, your 
ultimate success insured." 

I have abstracted this significant speech, which took three 
hours to deliver, because it shows how his mind grasped such 
situations, and how his imagination played all around them. 
In the same way, in 1856, he deprecated the violent inter- 
ference of Sir J. Bowring (a former secretary of the Peace 
Society) with the Chinese, and insisted that they were "the 
nation of etiquette," and were not to be coerced by " a brutal 
freedom of manners." " If you are not," he then prophetically 
protested, " cautious and careful of your conduct now in deal- 
ing with China, you will find that you are likely not to extend 
commerce, btit to excite the jealousy of powerful states, and to 
involve yourselves in hostilities with nations not inferior to 
yourselves. ..." 

Such were the ideas that prompted the stroke of the Suez 
Canal shares, and his dramatic summoning of the Indian 
troops to Malta when Russia was before the citadel of the 
Levant, and India had to be impressed ; that prompted, too, 
his proclamation of the Queen as Empress of India ; and 
his choice of the late Lord Lytton as a poet suited for 
Indian Viceroyalty ; these ideas, that made him announce, 
shortly before he died, that " London " was " the key of India." 

In this context I must dwell too for a moment on what I 
have already hinted concerning the temper of his diplomacy. 
Already, in i860, he had recognised the full changes imposed 



2 22 DISRAELI 

by the spirit of the age. "... In the old days," he observed, 
" diplomacy was conducted in a secret fashion, whilst now we 
had 'a candid foreign policy.' What in former times . . . 
would have been a soliloquy in Downing Street, now becomes 
a speech in the House of Commons." But that was no 
pretext, he also always asserted, as I shall again have to 
notice, for roughness and offence, for a high voice and a low 
hand ; still less for playing censor, lecturer, or hector at 
once. Above all, he abominated the diplomacy which 
encourages by words and disappoints by deeds — the diplomacy 
that in 1864 promised defence to Denmark and then denied 
her even encouragement. Speaking then, Disraeli said : 
"... We will not threaten, and then refuse to act ; we will 
not lure on our allies with expectations we do not mean to 
fulfil. And, sir, if ever it he the lot of myself or any public men 
with whom I have the honour to act, to carry on important 
negotiations on behalf of this country . . . I trust that we at 
least shall not carry them on in such a manner that it will be 
our dtity to come to Parliament to announce to the country that 
we have no allies, and then declare that England can never act 
alone" In diplomacy, moreover, he laid great stress — as is 
witnessed by a striking passage in Endymion — on the need 
for a minister's personal acquaintance with the chief actors 
on the foreign stage, and with the temper of the people 
whose fortunes are in their hands.^ 

All these governing issues underlay his great Berlin 
Treaty. Its first principle was to uphold the effective in- 
dependence of Turkey. Several absurdities have been alleged 
on this head. It was also bruited for political ends that, as 
a Semite,^ he fostered the Moslem, whom, as a Briton, he 
should have suppressed. 

1 "... Do you think a man like that, called upon to deal with 
a Metternich or a Pozzo, has no advantage over an individual who never 
leaves his chair in Downing Street except to kill grouse? Pah! 
Metternich and Pozzo know very well that Lord Roehampton knows 
them. . . ." " Roehampton " is Palmerston. The prophecy of the Congress 
repeats one in Cofitarmi. 

2 Of the many passages that may be read in this connection, in- 
cluding that fine ironical one of the Feast of Tabernacles in Tancred, 
paralleled by that about " Moses Lump " in Heine, and the teUing chapter 



TURKEY AND RUSSIA 223 

This is not only untrue, but inaccurate. It is the sort of 
mistake adopted by such as imagine Mahomet to have been 
a Turk. Disraeli had early in life travelled far into the East, 
had been present at Yanina during an insurrection, had known 
leading pachas (one of whom consulted him), and observed 
inner intrigues. But while the Moslem soldier and peasant 
always impressed him, he detested the system of the Sultan. 
An early passage records this detestation. Pondering, in 
Contarini Fleming, the failure of successive Governments to 
rid Asia of "the revelations of the son of Abdallah," he calls 
its whole object one "to convert man into a fanatic slave." 
His two earlier romances, Alroy and Iskander, both glow with 
this theme — rebellion against Islam. The picturesqueness, 
both in scenery and history, of all Mediterranean countries,^ 
fascinated him ; so did the charm of the East, which, as a 
stripling, he defined as "repose." But it was the habitation 
of the Turk, not the Turk, that exercised the spell. "Live 
a little longer in these countries before you hazard an opinion 
as to their conduct," says one of his characters. " Do you 

in the Life of Lord George Bentinck, I will only cite one less familiar from 
Alroy : " . . . All was silent : alone the Hebrew prince stood, amid 
the regal creation of the Macedonian captains. Empires and dynasties 
flourish and pass away ; the proud metropolis becomes a solitude, the 
conquering kingdom even a desert ; but Israel still remains, still a 
descendant of the most ancient kings breathed amid these royal ruins, 
and still the eternal sun could never arise without gilding the towers of 
living Jerusalem." This (with its after-irony of " Alroy's " seizure by the 
Kourdish bandits) may be compared with the satire in which Disraeli 
encountered Mr. Newdegate's appeals to " prophecy ; " "... They 
have survived the Pharaohs, they have survived the Caesars, they have 
survived the Antonines and the Seleucidae, and I think they will survive 
the arguments of the right honourable member. . . ." Mr, Morley tells 
that Mr. Gladstone said that Disraeli asserted that only those nations 
that behaved well to the Jews prospered, Disraeli, in saying so, however, 
only repeated a dictum of Frederick the Great. 

^ " Say what they like," so " Herbert " in Vettetia, " there is a spell in 
the shores of the Mediterranean Sea which no others can rival. Never 
was such a union of natural loveliness and magical associations ! On 
these shores have risen all that interests us in the past — Egypt and 
Palestine, Greece, Rome, and Carthage, Moorish Spain and feudal Italy. 
These shores have yielded us our religion, our arts, our literature, and 
our laws. If all that we have gained from the shores of the Mediterranean 
was erased from the memory of man, we should be savages." 



2 24 DISRAELI 

indeed think that the rebel beys of Albania were so simple ? 
. . . The practice of politics in the East may be described by 
one word, dissimulation . . ." 

An adverse opinion also characterises his letters from 
the East, some of which are embodied in his books. Alroy, 
dedicated to Jerusalem, as Iskander ^ is to Athens, are neither 
of them favourable to Turkey. And even the Turkish want 
of humour annoyed him. " I never offered an opinion till 
I was sixty," says the old Turk in the last romance, " and 
then it was one which had been in our family for a century." 
He detested fanatics as he detested bores, but he loved 
purpose ; and the sole thing that recommended the Turk to 
him was that, though a fanatic and a bore, he was both for a 
purpose. Moreover, up to 1840 the Greeks were more favour- 
able to the Jews than the Turks ; and it can scarcely be 
contended that his attitude to the Afghans — who are Semite 
by race — was prejudiced by the fact. No ; if we seek for 
a Semitic affinity in Disraeli outside that to Israel, we must 
find it in that to the Saracens of Spain. 

But neither is the stricture of his principle valid. As 
is well known, in upholding the independence of Turkey, he 
was following in the steps of his predecessors and indorsing 
the known views of two skilled diplomatists, Sir Robert 
Morier and Sir Henry Layard, whose political tenets were 
opposite to Disraeli's. He had long before made up his 
mind on this subject, and had defined Turkey as a " barrier " 
against aggression. In a speech towards the close of the 
Crimean War — "the Coalition War" — a speech in which he 
blamed the Government for their treatment of Russia, and 
considered Russia's " preponderance " towards Turkey, he 
observed :"...! believe that there are elements, when 
Turkey shall be more fairly treated — and never has any 
country been more unfairly treated than Turkey, especially 
within the last two years — for securing the independence of 
her empire, and (what is to us of vital interest) preventing 
Constantinople from becoming an appanage to any great 
military power." 

By a tripartite treaty we, conjointly with Russia, Austria, 
^ It was translated into Greek, as Alroy was into Hebrew. 



TURKEY AND RUSSIA 225 

and France, were allies bound to maintain the territorial 
integrity of Turkey — that is, whatever dispositions might be 
made, she must retain a compact and self-inclosed dominion. 
And why had this become a necessity for England, which 
is an Eastern as well as a Western power ? There was a 
double cause — our Indian Empire and our Mediterranean 
trade ; it was in the interest of both that a comparatively 
weak power should occupy the very key of the position 
— an historical capital whose very name symbolises empire, 
and whose situation, facing both east and west, dominates 
the Levant and commands the high-road of the Orient. 
As between Greece and Russia, the first undoubtedly pos- 
sesses the claims of race and inheritance. The second is an 
interloper, and her " Greekness " springs from ecclesiastical 
and political usurpation. The Greek Macedonians are more 
hostile to Russia than to Turkey. Before now the Greeks 
have expressed their gratitude that Disraeli saved them from 
being sucked into a huge Bulgaria. It was in the interest of 
European peace that Constantinople should not be in the 
hands of a power so small, so restive, so motley, so fluid as 
Greece. It was in the interest of India that the Moslem 
pope should be upheld. It was in the interest, moreover, of 
the Christian subjects of the Porte themselves that Turkey 
should be so tied and so pledged to the great military and 
maritime powers in concert, that they could exact real 
guarantees for their protection, should brutal misbehaviour 
re-arise, and that the work of humanity should be left to none 
of these powers apart, and exposed to the temptation of 
indulging separate ambitions and disturbing the peace of the 
world. If united selfishness has deterred them from doing 
their duty, that must not be laid to the treaty's charge. 
"Those," he said, in 1876, "who suppose that England ever 
would uphold, or at this moment particularly is upholding, 
Turkey from blind superstition and from a want of sympathy 
with the highest aspirations of humanity, are deceived. What 
our duty is at this critical moment is to maintain the Empire 
of England ; " and before the Congress, he again solemnly 
pointed out that worse, more widespread, and far more lasting 
agonies would be caused to myriads abroad if the misguided 
Q 



226 DISRAELI 

excitement of several sections at home were to prevail, than 
even by any horrors which must move both indignation and 
sympathy in every heart. 

Into the detailed controversies of the " Bulgarian atrocities " 
agitation I will not here enter. It is now generally confessed 
that Disraeli was right not to be led away by the sensational 
exaggerations manufactured for Russian purposes abroad, and 
retailed, sometimes, for political purposes at home. Horrible 
savageries, of course, happened on both sides in such a war, 
and those horrors, from the nature of their theatre, were 
Oriental. But that they were bound up with racial feuds, 
and were in full evidence on the other side, was vouched 
for to me — and in great detail — some ten years after their 
occurrence, by Sir William White, then Ambassador at Con- 
stantinople, and by the then consul, himself a leading member 
of the committee for their investigation. These authorities 
went much further in their declarations than ever Disraeli 
did, with his extreme reticence in public. Indeed, they told 
me that the whole source of the war had been engineered by 
the acute irritations of Russian diplomacy, which, as Lord 
Derby long ago expressed it, " has never proceeded by storm, 
but by sap and mine." 

The true facts should not be blinked. With regard to 
Turkey in Europe they are both racial, political, and ecclesias- 
tical. The race aspect was powerful with Disraeli. He 
always believed it to be "the key of history, and the surest 
clue to the characters of men in all ages." In England he 
discerned the blend of" Saxon industry and Norman manners." 
While it was race again that had made national institutions 
" the ramparts of the multitude against large estates exercis- 
ing political power derived from a limited class." Practically, 
it is still a question of the Slav against both Greeks (whom 
they have murdered) and Albanians, who themselves massacre 
the Serbs. Politically, it is a question of Russian influence 
and both Austrian and Italian jealousy. Ecclesiastically, it 
is a question of the freed principalities against the Patriarch 
of Constantinople ; who, since the very time when Russia first 
newly pretended to the Byzantine inheritance of the Greeks, be- 
came (oddly enough) a nominee of the Sultan. From the outset 



TURKEY AND RUSSIA 227 

Disraeli determined to undo that larger Bulgaria, stretching 
to the iEgean, involving all the international conflicts just 
hinted, and ranging from the Danube to Salonica, which 
Russia proposed by the clandestine Treaty of San Stefano. 
As is familiar, he founded a smaller Bulgaria, barriered by the 
Balkans, dividing it into two portions — Bulgaria and Eastern 
Roumelia — in the last of which he implanted autonomy. It 
has often been said that the sequel proved him futile, for the 
two slices of the big worm have since been repieced. But the 
events of 1885-86 which caused this reunion were the gift, not 
of Russian ascendency, but of those very institutions which 
Disraeli created. Again, it has been popularly put as if the 
treaty were not his own policy and had not endured. I could 
most easily prove the error of both these propositions. As 
regards the first, just as in the Reform Bill of 1867, the co- 
operation of both parties was necessary for the limited achieve- 
ment of his views, so it fared with the need for European 
concert in the Berlin Treaty. But his ideas had been sketched 
out during the Crimean War, and the restoration of that very 
concert, which still subsists, was a birth of the treaty. The 
Berlin Treaty restored not only British prestige, but — as a 
foreign statesman remarked — Britain's moral influence in the 
councils of Europe. It was so hailed in England, and this, 
as Mr. Roebuck acknowledged, was its ground for enthusiastic 
national support. Russia withdrew from Constantinople. Both 
the Dardanelles and the Turkish frontier in Europe were 
assured, A Sultan, then beset with bankruptcy and dynastic 
troubles, was given his chance of heading a party of reform 
championed by Midhat. Turkey was rendered compact, and 
lopped of mongrel provinces, while she obtained the port of 
Burgos on the Black Sea as a check to Russia. As regards 
Turkey in Asia, Disraeli's aim, as I have already outlined, 
was Indian. Erzeroum, Bayazid, Alashkerd, proved powerful 
buffers against Russian predominance ; and Russia still sways 
the mongrel Bessarabia then restored to her. It is now recog- 
nised that Russia, to traverse Persia, would encounter a 
British bayonet at every step. Disraeli's great object, like 
Palmerston's, was to prevent Turkey from becoming a fief to 
Russia, and the Black Sea from remaining a mere Russian 



228 DISRAELI 

lake, as the repudiation by Mr. Gladstone, in 187 1, of the 
clause in the Treaty of Paris, for which the Crimean War 
had been resumed, subsequently empowered it to become. 
Turkey, Disraeli had written in The Press of May 21, 1853, 
was " a necessary evil in the European system," but one pre- 
ferable to some others, and more likely to prevent general 
anarchy and bloodshed. And he recalled Prince Potemkin's 
old inscription on the gates of Chusan : " This is the road to 
Constantinople." The standing danger was the interposal of 
Russian ambition on the perpetual plea of a Christian pro- 
tectorate — resented by many of the Christian provinces them- 
selves — in order to constitute Turkey a Russian province, and 
to spread a dominion less fanatical, perhaps, but even more 
merciless and repressive in Europe, however civilising it has 
proved in portions of Central Asia. His scheme, compassing 
autonomy here, independence there, compactness, the power 
to govern and the accountability to improve, everywhere was 
one of development. It held within it, as he said, the seeds 
of " Evolution." 

How did Disraeli diagnose Russia's legitimate aspirations } 
He certainly neither ignored nor condemned them, but he 
distinguished between aspirations legitimate and illegitimate. 
Speaking in 1871, after Russia had violated and Mr. Glad- 
stone had torn up the Black Sea Clause, Disraeli criticised 
the course which the Ministry had pursued. 

"... Russia has a policy, as every great power has a 
policy, and she has as much right to have a policy as Germany 
or England. I believe the policy of Russia, taking a general 
view of it, to have been a legitimate policy, though it may 
have been inevitably a disturbing policy. When you have a 
great country in the centre of Europe, with an immense 
territory, with a numerous and yet, as compared with its 
colossal area, a sparse population, producing human food to 
any extent, in addition to certain most valuable raw materials, 
it is quite clear that a people so situated, practically without 
any seaboard, would never rest until it had found its way to 
the coast, and could have a mode of communicating easily 
with other nations, and exchanging its products with them. 



TURKEY AND RUSSIA 229 

Well, for two hundred years Russia has pursued that policy ; 
it has been a legitimate, though disturbing policy. It has cost 
Sweden provinces, and it has cost Turkey provinces. But 
no wise statesman could help feeling that it was a legitimate 
policy — a policy which it was impossible to resist, and one 
which the general verdict of the world recognised — that Russia 
should find her way to the sea-coast. She has completely 
accomplished it. She has admirable seaports ; she can com- 
municate with every part of the world, and she has profited 
accordingly. 

" But at the end of the last century she advanced a new view. 
It was not a national policy ; it was invented by the then ruler 
of Russia — a woman, a stranger, and an usurper — and that 
policy was that she must have the capital of the Turkish Empire. 
That was not a legitimate, that was a disturbing policy. It 
was a policy like the French desire to have the Rhine— false in 
principle. She had no moral claim to Constantinople ; she 
did not represent the races to which it once belonged; she had 
no political necessity to go there, because she already had two 
capitals. Therefore it was not a legitimate but a disturbing 
policy. As the illegitimate desire of France to have the Rhine 
has led to the prostration of France, so the illegitimate desire 
of Russia to have Constantinople led to the prostration of 
Russia. . . ." 

The means used by Disraeli for preserving the peace of 
Europe and protecting our Eastern Empire were, in the rough, 
on the lines I have tried to shadow. First of all, refusing to 
allow the creation of an unwieldy and anarchic province of 
discordant races which could not become a coherent nation, 
he reduced the Bulgaria designed under the San Stefano 
arrangement by two-thirds, created Eastern Roumelia, with 
a framed constitution, south of the Balkans, and yielded the 
rest to Turkey. By this measure not only was Bulgaria 
prevented from being bulky and hybrid, but the Macedonian 
Greeks (preponderant over Slavs and Serbs) were saved from 
absorption. Turkey was delimited in Europe by the natural 
fastnesses of the Balkans — one that even in his youth Disraeli 
marked as the real frontier. Turkey was pledged to reform 
her administration, while the signatories also guaranteed her 



230 DISRAELI 

from Russian aggression. Both Russia and Turkey, there- 
fore — and, indeed, all Europe — knew that England was in 
earnest about her Indian Empire. Turkey's position was 
ascertained, so was Russia's. Russia was propitiated by 
Bessarabia, Kars, Ardahan, and Batoum ; Turkey, gratified 
by the retention of the great portion of what was to have 
been Bulgaria's, by the retention of Bayazid, by the great 
region of Erzeroum, and of the valley of Alashkerd. 

Further, Cyprus fell to the lot of England as a post "of 
arms," a strategical, a coasting and a coaling port of high 
value for our Indian Empire, commanding as it does the 
high-route which leads to the Euphrates Valley, and useful 
besides for Egypt. He had noted this island on his youthful 
trip in the East as most opportune for the purpose.^ 

Disraeli's whole purview, in these arrangements, apart 
from the defence of Great Britain, was to ensure a feasible 
government under the watch of the European concert. This 
intention is well expressed by the late Master of Balliol, 
writing in 1877 : "... I want to see the higher civilisation of 
Europe combining against the lower and offering something 
like a paternal government to . . . the East. But then there 
is such a danger of takhig away the government which they 
have and substituting only chaos. This might be avoided if 
the European Powers would jointly take up their cause. ..." 

I may be allowed to recall, in relation to some of these 
matters, a few of Disraeli's immediate after-utterances. They 
are too often neglected. 

As regards the English guarantee of the Porte against 
Russian offence, attained by the Convention of Constanti- 
nople which supplemented the treaty, he observed — 

"... Suppose now . . . the settlement of Europe had 
not included the Convention of Constantinople and the 
occupation of the isle of Cyprus, . . . what might . . . have 
occurred .-' In ten, fifteen, or twenty years, the power and 
resources of Russia having revived, some quarrel would again 
have occurred, Bulgarian or otherwise, and in all probability 
the armies of Russia would have been assailing the Ottoman 

^ He mentions it both in his Home Letters and in Tancred as to be 
acquired by England. 



TURKEY AND RUSSIA 231 

dominions, both in Europe and Asia ; and enveloping and 
inclosing the city of Constantinople, and its all-powerful 
position. Well, what would be the probable conduct under 
these circumstances of the Government . . . whatever party 
might be in power ? / fear there might be hesitation for a 
time — a want of decision, a want of firmness ; but no one doubts 
that ultimately England would have said, * This will never 
do ; we must prevent the conquest of Asia Minor ; we must 
interfere in this matter and arrest the course of Russia. . . .' 
Well, then, that being the case, I say it is extremely important 
that this country should take a step beforehand which should 
indicate what the policy of England would be. . . . The 
responsibilities of England are practically diminished by 
the course we have taken. . . . One of the results of my 
attending the Congress of Berlin has been to prove, what I 
always suspected to be an absolute fact, that neither the 
Crimean, nor this horrible devastating war which has just 
terminated, would have taken place if England had spoken 
with the necessary firmness. Russia had complaints to make 
against this country ; that neither in the case of the Crimean 
War, nor on this occasion — and I don't shrink from my share 
of the responsibility in this matter — was the voice of England 
so clear and decided as to exercise a due share in the guidance 
of European opinion!' Without such finality the treaty could 
only have been patchwork. " That was not the idea of public 
duty entertained by my noble friend and myself. We thought 
the time had come when we should take steps which would 
produce some order out of the anarchy chaos that had so long 
prevailed. We asked ourselves was it absolutely a necessity 
that the fairest provinces of the world should be the most 
devastated and the most ill-used, and for this reason, that 
there is no security for life and property so long as that 
country is in perpetual fear of invasion and aggression. . . . 
/ hold that we have laid the foundation of a state of affairs 
which may open a new cotitinent to the civilisatioti of Europe, 
and that the welfare of the world, and the wealth of the 
world, may be increased by availing ourselves of that tran- 
quillity and order which the more intimate connection of that 
country with England will now produce. ..." And, added 



232 DISRAELI 

the late Lord Salisbury, "We were striving to pick up 
the thread — the broken thread — of England's old imperial 
position." 

Before this utterance Disraeli had stated that the Conven- 
tion's object was not only to confirm " tranquillity and order," 
but to safeguard India. " We have a substantial interest in 
the East ; it is a commanding interest, and its behest must 
be obeyed." — " In taking Cyprus," he continued, " the move- 
^ ^ ment is not Mediterranean, it is Indian ; " and, speaking of 
||j| I Russia's temptation to profit by a state of things which tended 
1 f to resolve the societies of Asia Minor and the countries 
beyond into the anarchy of original elements, he used the 
familiar words: "... There is no reason for these constant 
wars, or fears of wars between Russia and England. Before 
the circumstances which led to the recent disastrous war, 
when none of those events which we have seen agitating the 
world had occurred, and when we were speaking in another 
place of the conduct of Russia in Central Asia, / vindicated 
that conduct, which I thozight was unjustly attacked, and I said 
then, what I repeat now, there is room enough for Russia and 
England in Asia!' 

On the other hand, in another speech alluding to Austria's 
trusteeship of Bosnia, he said it permitted us to check, 
". . .1 should hope for ever, that Pan-Slavist confederacy 
and conspiracy which has already proved so disadvantageous 
to the happiness of the world." Nobody acquainted with 
Austria's desire for Salonica, Italy's dread of that possi- 
bility, and the fear of one at any rate of these powers lest 
Greece should absorb Albania, can fail to grasp the relevance 
of this hope. 

It should be borne in mind that at the time these 
deliverances were made Abdul Hamid ^ was not what he 

1 In 1878, Disraeli, after emphasising the Sultan's friendliness to 
Greece and the value of a Grseco-Turk entente as a bar to " Pan-Slavic 
monopoly," said : ". . . No prince, probably, that has ever hved has 
gone through such a series of catastrophes. One of his predecessors 
commits suicide ; his immediate predecessor is subject to a visitation 
even more awful. The moment he ascends the throne, his ministers 
are assassinated. A conspiracy breaks out in his own palace, and then 



TURKEY AND RUSSIA 233 

seems since to have become. He was then — and the late 
Sir William White was my informant — an enthusiastic re- 
former, with the wise and accomplished Midhat for his 
inspirer. Had he remained so Turkey would have achieved 
much for Asia Minor. Even now, Abdul may perhaps be 
sometimes excused for mistrusting the cant of reform on the 
part of unreforming powers. Perhaps it is impossible long 
to be Sultan of Turkey without falling into the faults bred 
by habitual suspicion. Perhaps the varying conduct of 
Western Powers conduces to cynicism. But at this period 
the Armenians themselves were hopeful. With the Russian 
aspiration I sympathise. Russia is destined to expansion 
and greatness ; she is a cold power desiring to be warm, 
pushed by a military power eager to be forward. But she 
is also that strange anomaly — a new empire with a mediaeval 
standard. With the freezing officialism of Russia, giant in 
profession and pigmy in practice, I entertain no sympathy at 
all. Nor are the Cossack barbarities a whit less infamous 
than those of the Bashi-Bazouks. What is always to be 
dreaded is the periodical recurrence of race-hatreds and bar- 
barism on the confines of both countries. Turkey comprises 
many more races than Russia ; at such times, therefore, 
when bad governors incense brutaUsed men, unspeakable 
horrors eclipse imagination and bafHe even sympathy. 
Bulgarian or Servian Slavs massacre Macedonian Greeks, 
Albanians butcher Macedonian Serbs, and Turks both 
massacre and torture Macedonian Slavs. The name of the 
particular province inflamed at a specific time by revolu- 
tionary committees is constantly used as if designating the 
natural uprising of a united people or of a single race ; 
but this is not the case. The recent blood-orgy, however, 
connived at by more than one of the powers, would seem 
to disgrace the Ottoman beyond any other single group con- 
cerned. And yet the normal Turk — soldier or peasant — is 

he learns that his kingdom is invaded, . . . and that his enemy is at his 
gates ; yet with all these trials, ... he has never swerved in . . . the 
feeling of a desire to deal with Greece in a spirit of friendship. . . . He 
is apparently a man whose . . . impulses are good, . . . and where 
impulses are good, there is always hope." 



234 DISRAELI 

not naturally brutal. It is only when insulted fanaticism 
dements him that he becomes so ; and his fanaticism seldom 
fans the flames unprovoked by foreign designs. Of course 
nothing could be more desirable than a practical, a permanent 
understanding with Russia ; nothing more desirable than a 
complete reform of European Turkey, which the joint powers 
could enforce if they would unite. Both are consummations 
devoutly to be wished. But bearing in mind the panther 
tread of Russian diplomacies, their recent developments in 
China and Japan, their constant designs on India and in 
Persia, their stealthy hankering after Constantinople, their 
earlier annexation even of American territory, as Disraeli 
pointed out — is the former practical ^ By all means let 
Russia expand, as she has a right to expand ; but by all 
means let England ascertain the due spheres of her expansion, 
and retain her own empire, that gives justice and freedom to 
countless races once oppressed. Nor let any cant of whatever 
nature blind her eyes to the hard issues. 

Throughout his pronouncements on foreign affairs is to 
be discerned his construction of " balance of power " and of 
"interference." As regards the first, his principles are well 
defined in a speech of 1864. "... The proper meaning of 
' balance of power ' is security for communities in general 
against a predominant and particular power." It also follows 
"that you have to take into your consideration states and 
influences that are not to be counted among the European 
powers." Every crisis in Europe bears on America and the 
colonies. So early as 1848 he had pointed out that, though 
insulted, "... yet our welfare as a great colonial power was 
so intimately connected with European politics, that in seasons 
of crisis we could only retire from interference at the expense 
not only of our prestige but of our safety." The "balance 
of power" principle he derived from Bolingbroke ; he also 
adopted from Bolingbroke his principle of " interference." 

"... There are conditions," he laid it down in i860, 
"under which it may be our imperative duty to interfere. 
We may clearly interfere in the affairs of foreign countries 
when the interests or the honour of England are at stake, or 
when, in our opinion, the independence of Europe is menaced. 



FOREIGN POLICY, FRANCE 235 

But a great responsibility devolves upon that minister who 
has to decide when those conditions have arisen ; and he who 
makes a mistake upon that subject, he who involves his 
country in interference or in war under the idea that the 
interests or honour of the country are concerned, when neither 
is substantially involved, he who involves the country in 
interference or war because he believes the independence of 
Europe is menaced, when, in fact, it is not in danger, makes 
of course a great, a fatal mistake. The general principle that 
we ozight not to interfere in the affairs of foreign nations, 
unless there is a clear necessity, and that, generally speaking, 
it ought to be held a political dogma that the people of other 
countries should SETTLE THEIR OWN AFFAIRS without the 
introduction of foreign influence or foreign power ^ is one which 
I trust the Hozise . . . will cordially adhere to. . . ." To this 
let me add a passage from the great Denmark speech of 
1864. It is its corollary — 

"... By the just influence of England in the councils 
of Europe, I mean an influence contradistinguished from 
that which is obtained by intrigue and secret understanding ; 
I mean an influence that results from the conviction of foreign 
powers that our resources are great, and that our policy is 
moderate and steadfast. ... I lay this down as a great 
principle which cannot be controverted in the management 
of our foreign affairs. If England is resolved upon a particular 
policy, war is not probable.''^ 

One illustration is worth many arguments. At the Berlin 
Congress affairs at a time began to march ill. The Russian 
plenipotentiary was making mischief. Disraeli quietly pencilled 
some requisitions on the part of England and forwarded them 
to him. " If you accept these," he said, " peace — if not, war." 

Bearing these two further principles of foreign policy in 
mind, let me endeavour to sketch Disraeli's attitude towards 
various other powers. With America I deal separately in the 
next chapter. 

Friendship with France amounted with him almost to a 
passion, and none would have rejoiced more heartily at the 
amity which our King has recently renewed. He himself knew 
the French well, and in the 'forties had met with the most 



236 DISRAELI 

cordial welcome on two occasions from the King, the Court, 
the lights of literature and science, the politicians and the 
people. He thought that with French alliance other powers 
might exclaim as Shakespeare's Constance exclaimed — 

" France friends with England, what become of me ! " 

France was the nation of society, the nurse of arts and 
manners. England and France supplied reciprocal wants. 
Their friendship is a pledge for European peace. Had the 
Czar been made aware of it in time, the blunder and mis- 
fortune of the Crimean War would not have taken place. In 
Coningsby he called Paris "the university of the world," and 
enlarged on commercial exchange between two first-class 
powers in a vein at once light and serious. In 1845, France 
regarded Peel as the guardian of Anglo-French cordiality, 
and feared the chance of Palmerston's return to office as 
fraught with a possible treatment of " the French connection 
with levity or disregard." Louis Philippe relieved his anxieties 
by consulting Disraeli on this point.^ 

"A good understanding," was Disraeli's interpretation in 
1864, "between England and France is simply this — that so 
far as the influence of these two great powers extends, the 
affairs of the world shall be conducted by their co-operation 
instead of by their rivalry. But co-operation 7'equires 7tot 
merely identity of interest but reciprocal good feeling. In public 
as well as in private affairs, a certain degree of sentiment is 
necessary for the happy conduct of matters." In another speech 
ten years earlier he also observed that Anglo-French relations 
were not dynastic, but depended on commercial interests. 

Perhaps his most remarkable expression on this theme 
occurs in a speech of 1853,^ when Sir James Graham had gone 
about saying that the Emperor was a despot who turned his 
people into slaves, and when there was one of those periodical 
outbursts of Gallophobia to which we are accustomed. Disraeli 
pointed out that peace with France had then subsisted for 
forty years, that social relations had multiplied, that an 

^ Cf. his Life 0/ Lord George Bentinck, p. 170. 

2 This was the speech in which Disraeli styled himself as not only a 
devoted parliamentarian, but " a gentleman of the Press." 



FRANCE 237 

identity of interest in high policy existed. He exploded the 
fallacy that national hostility was a true tradition. Even 
Agincourt and Cr^cy stood for a struggle between two 
princes rather than between two nations. "... No one can 
deny that both Queen Elizabeth and the Lord Protector 
looked to that alliance as the basis of their foreign connections. 
No one can deny that there was one subject on which even 
the brilliant Bolingbroke and the sagacious Walpole were 
agreed — and that was the great importance of cultivating an 
alliance, or good understanding, with France. At a later date 
the most eminent of the statesmen of this century, Mr. 
Pitt, formed his system on this principle. . . ." The tra- 
ditional prejudice, therefore, was the reverse of true. The 
natural tendency was to concord, for after the great European 
revolutions at the close of the eighteenth and dawn of the 
nineteenth centuries, a durable peace had emerged. Nor 
were the defences (which Sir Robert Peel had really 
inaugurated) due to the rise of the Third Napoleon ; they 
were due to the changes in scientific warfare. It was true 
that in France there was then a military government. " But 
there is a great error also, if history is to guide us, in 
assuming that because a country is governed by an army, 
that army must be extremely anxious to conquer other 
countries." The lust for conquest under militarism is due to 
home-uneasiness, and from a feeling in the army that its 
power is not felt. The real prejudice was that France had 
subverted her constitution. This prejudice had foundation, 
but it was the very cause of those acts which indiscreet 
journalism was now criticising so angrily. "Some years 
ago," he resumed (and the glimpse of Louis Philippe is 
interesting), "I had occasion frequently to visit France. I 
found that country then under the mild sway of a constitu- 
tional monarch — of a prince who, from temper as well as 
policy, was humane and beneficent. I know that at that time 
the Press was free. I know that at that time the Parliament 
of France was . . . distinguished by its eloquence, and by 
a dialectic power that probably even our own House of 
Commons has never surpassed. I know that under these 
circumstances France arrived at a pitch of material prosperity 



238 DISRAELI 

which it had never before reached. I know also that after a 
reign of unbroken prosperity of long duration, when he was 
aged, when he was in sorrow, and when he was suffering 
under overwhelming indisposition, this same prince was rudely 
expelled from his capital,^ and was denounced as a poltroon 
by all the journals of England, because he did not command 
his troops to fire upon the people. Well, other powers and other 
princes have since occupied his seat, who have asserted their 
authority in a very different way, and are denounced in the 
same organs as tyrants because they did order their troops to 
fire upon the people. I think every man has a right to have 
his feelings upon these subjects ; but what is the moral I 
presume to draw upon these circumstances ? It is this, that it 
is extremely difficult to form an opinion upon French politics ; 
and that so long as the French people are exact in their commercial 
transactions and friendly in their political relations, it is just as 
well that we shoidd not interfere ivith their management of their 
domestic concerns." 

The same ideas animated him in 1854, when he pointed 
out that ten years earlier the Czar had, by a secret manoeuvre, 
sought to provoke an estrangement which had not endured, but 
which the Czar was led to believe enduring when the Crimean 
War broke out. The same guided his hearty approval of Mr. 
Cobden's aims in relation to France. What he objected to in 
the later Italian Treaty was that it embodied " reciprocity " too 
late — at a time when for England reciprocity could secure no 
more. In 1858 — the Walewski affair — Disraeli termed our 
alliance with France " the key and corner-stone of modern 
civilisation." After the Treaty of Villafranca', Disraeli advised 
England not "to go to congresses and conferences in fine 
dresses and ribands, to enjoy the petty vanity of settling the 
fate of petty princes," but to have recourse to "your ally 
the Emperor of the French " — a monarch who, as Disraeli 
said some years afterwards, "... has been created and can 
only be maintained by the sympathies of his people — a proud, 

1 Disraeli always maintained that the expulsion of Louis Philippe was 
the act of the secret societies, and not that of the French nation. He 
had reason to know. His letters in 1848 are full of gloom regarding the 
outlook in Europe. So were Carlyle's. 



FRANCE 239 

imperious, and apt to be discontented people." In i860, 
when many were jubilant over Italy's united nationality, 
Disraeli, demonstrating its present incompleteness, asserted 
that its accomplishment must come not through the "moral 
influence of England," but "by the will and the sword of 
France " — though this did not blind him to contingent 
perils. 

" It is the will of France that can alone restore Rome to 
the Italians. It is the sword of France, if any sword can do 
it, that alone can free Venetia from the Austrians." But in 
a long and splendid speech he urged, almost prophetically, 
that by forcing the French Emperor to a policy which he 
was unwilling to pursue, we should eventually give him a 
dangerous preponderance : "... It will be in his power . . . 
to make those greater changes and aim at those greater results 
which I will only intimate and not attempt to describe" In 
1864, on the Danish crisis, advocating firmness of action 
following on firmness of statement, he once more repeated : 
"... If there is, under these circumstances, a cordial alliance 
between England and France, war is most difficult ; but if 
there is a thorough understanding between England, France, 
and Russia, war is impossible." Though here, again, this 
consideration would not deter him from the single object of 
England's welfare. 

Finally, he consulted French sentiment in the delicate 
arrangement at Berlin. "... There is no step of this kind 
that I would take without considering the effect it might have 
upon the feelings of France — a nation to whom we are bound 
by almost every tie that can unite a people. . . . We avoided 
Egypt, knowing how susceptible France is with regard to 
Egypt ; we avoided Syria ; . . . and we avoided availing 
ourselves of any part of the terra firma, because we would 
not hurt the feelings or excite the suspicions of France. . . . 
But the interests of France . . . are, as she acknowledges, 
sentimental and traditionary interests ; and although I respect 
them, ... we must remember that our connection with the 
East is not merely an affair of sentiment and tradition, but 
that we have urgent and substantial and enormous interests 
which we must guard and keep." 



240 DISRAELI 

I pass now to Germany. Prussia, in his early days, he 
had described as " the Persia " of Europe ; the Austrians as 
" the Chinese." Some thirty years before Germany became 
united, and Bismarck had brandished the mailed fist, Disraeli 
regarded much in the air as " dreamy and dangerous non- 
sense ; " he considered theory and " inner consciousness " as 
distinctive of the German nature, and he failed to perceive 
the rising wave of its instinct for united nationality. Here 
certainly his foresight flagged. When Prussia dismembered 
Denmark, he pointed out that by the arguments used she, too, 
might be deprived of Posen. Here certainly his foresight 
failed. But when the great war broke out, he rose to the 
occasion and realised its meaning to the full. " It is no 
common war," he said at the onset, " like that between Prussia 
and Austria, or like the Italian war in which France was 
engaged some years ago ; nor is it like the Crimean War. 
This war represents the German revolution, a greater political 
event than the French Revolution of last century. I don't say 
a greater or as great a social event. What its social conse- 
quences may be are in the future. Not a single principle, 
accepted by all statesmen for guidance in the management 
of our foreign affairs up to six months ago, any longer exists. 
There is not a diplomatic tradition that has not been swept 
away. You have a new world, new influences at work, new 
and unknown objects and dangers with which to cope, at 
present involved in the obscurity incident to the novelty of 
such affairs. . . . Lord Palmerston, eminently a practical man, 
trimmed the ship of State and shaped its policy with a view 
to preserve an equilibrium in Europe. But what has come to 
pass ? The balance of power has been entirely destroyed, 
and the country which suffers, and feels the effects of this 
great change most, is England." He recommended an attitude 
of "armed neutrality," such as Austria's occupation of the 
Danubian provinces, which certainly abridged the Crimean 
War. Such a policy tends to prevent, if possible, to shorten 
if it cannot prevent a conflict ; and when that conflict is 
finished, to temper the terms for the vanquished. Had it 
been feasible in the then state of our armaments, it might 
have produced lasting results. As time went on Disraeli 



GERMANY, AUSTRIA, ITALY 241 

grew to understand Germany better, though he never ceased 
to regret the humiliation to France. In Bismarck, however, 
he found a powerful friend, and one of his last utterances 
regarding Germany was to praise her as a peacemaker. 

At the Berlin Congress Lord Beaconsfield made his 
speeches in English. This was of design. A story was told 
that an eminent English diplomatist, in attendance on his 
chief, had adroitly suggested this course out of apprehension 
that "Dizzy's" French accent might not impress foreign 
representatives. But however this may have been, I am con- 
vinced it was not the real reason, which was to assert the 
leadership of Great Britain. 

Disraeli's French was fluent, if insular. In Italian he 
was naturally proficient. Italian literature was familiar to 
him, and next to Dante, he was fondest of Alfieri, a fine 
passage from whom, it will be remembered, he quotes in 
Lothair. He knew German well enough to read it. 

No sentiment surrounded his favour to Austria. It was 
her partition that he feared. So early as 1848 he 
objected, from the sole standpoint of England's interest, to 
championing the Magyars and the Italians against Austria, 
the Sicilians against Naples. We should, he then said, " mind 
our own business." And in 1856, when he combated the 
views of his opponents who sighed for the dismemberment 
of Russia, he also pointed out the dangers to European peace 
that must attend the dismemberment of Austria. The com- 
plete dismemberment of that empire — partly a few years 
later to be accomplished — would involve the independence 
of Hungary and the emancipation of Italy. 

With Italy herself he nourished, indeed, an innate 
sympathy, and for her a sentimental attachment. In all 
his reveries Venice and Rome figure no less frequently than 
do Athens and Jerusalem ; and afterwards none applauded 
Daniel Manin more than he. Italy is the haunting refrain 
of Venetia, Venice of Contarini Fleming, Rome romanticises 
Lothair. Perhaps a leaven of his old enthusiasm for "a 
cluster of small states" and "federal unions" still mingled 
with the practical outlook which also made him sacrifice 
many of his personal emotions to the cold requirements of 

R 



242 DISRAELI 

statesmanship. " Federal unions," he had sighed in Contarini, 
" would preserve us from the consequences of local jealousy." 
— " There would be more genius, and, what is of more 
importance, much more felicity." — '^ Italy might then reviver 
However this may be — and I for one regret his forced attitude 
towards the first flutter of Italian freedom — or whether his 
late acquaintance with Metternich had coloured his ideas, 
there can be no doubt of their constraining cause. His public 
views always confined themselves to what he believed was 
for the benefit of Great Britain. And in this instance — 
"... If we, or any other power," he urged, "should forcibly 
interfere in the affairs of Italy with the view of changing the 
political settlement of that country, the result will be, as in 
the case of an attempt to dismember Russia, one of those 
protracted wars that might fatally exhaust this country, and 
which, even supposing it to be successful, would leave Italy 
very possibly not in the possession of Austria, but under 
the dominion of some other power as little national." It 
should be recollected that 1858-61 were critical years for 
Anglo-French relations. After Palmerston's Orsini imbroglio 
we were more than once on the verge of war with France. 
Luckily, England was never forced into interference. Luckily, 
Italy regained her independence, through two commanding 
individualities. But it was history that warned Disraeli. 
Italy had been the battle-field of Austria and Spain, and a 
proHfic source of war, disorder, and havoc throughout the 
eighteenth century. "A war in Italy," he said in 1859, "is 
not a war in a corner. An Italian war may by possibility be 
an European war. The waters of the Adriatic cannot be dis- 
turbed without agitating the waters of the Rhine. The port 
of Trieste is not a mere Italian port. It is a port which 
belongs to the Italian confederation, and an attack on Trieste 
is not an attack on Austria alone, but also on Germany. If 
war springs up beyond the precincts of Italy, England has 
interests not merely from . . . those enlightened principles of 
civilisation which make her look zvith an adverse eye on aught 
that would disturb the peace of the world, but England may be 
interested from material considerations of the most urgent and 
momentous character'' It was from England's vantage-ground 



GREECE, POLAND 243 

alone that he discussed these questions in public. He wished 
Italy to be free, but he feared the results of ineffective feeling. 
Italy, he held, must free herself, and her aid, if any, should be 
French, not English, for France heads the Latin League, In 
1859 he rested on a mutual accord and disarmament between 
Great Britain and France. This would, he pleaded, be "a 
conquest far more valuable than Lombardy, or those wild 
dreams of a regeneration ever promised but never accom- 
plished." "National independence," he urged in another 
speech on the same subject, " is not created by protocols, nor 
public liberty guaranteed by treaties. All such arrangements 
have been tried before, and the consequence has been a sickly 
and short-lived offspring. What is going on in Italy — never 
mind whose may have been the original fault, what the present 
errors — can only be solved by the will, the energy, the sentiment, 
and the thought of the population themselves." 

One word before I close this chapter about Greece and 
Poland. Of his own feeling for Hellas there can be no 
question. It pervades his works. "All the great things 
have been done by the little peoples," He was offered, I 
have heard, the kingship of that country. But Greek ambi- 
tions, he felt, outgrew her capacities. Her hereditary dream 
has always been Constantinople. He bade her, in a famous 
passage, take the advice that he would give to a youth of 
genius and enterprise: ^' Be patient" But he also insisted 
that she should be heard at the Conference of Berlin. 

With Poland's free aspirations he always sympathised, 
and more than once expressed the grounds of his sympathy 
in Parliament. The movement in Poland was one, natural, 
spontaneous, and national. It was not forced by agitators, 
nor fomented by despots, nor provoked elsewhere from 
ulterior motives. It was the genuine expression of a combined 
people, and not the plea of a single race overbearing its fellow 
components, or the pretence of a single locality to manage 
itself, both of which have so frequently proved the stalking- 
horse of " national rights ; " pleas that, if sound, would bring 
back the Heptarchy in England, undo the union of Germany 
and of Italy, break up the faculty for government, and resolve 
into petty elements every great nation in Europe. Such an 



244 DISRAELI 

article of " liberal " faith is neither more nor less than political 
atomism ; and its humanitarian guise too often the false 
philanthropy of " sublime sentiments." In all his treatment of 
" Britain's interests abroad," Disraeli realised that whereas in 
England government can still be carried on by "traditionary 
influences," the remaining ancient communities of Europe 
were falling more and more under the veiled sway of " military 
force," These were the two alternatives. A " reconstruction " 
of England " on the great Transatlantic model " would only 
accentuate the discrepancy between the ineradicable features 
of her body politic, and the social standard which she would 
seek to imitate. The result would be that " after a due course 
of paroxysms for the sake of maintaining order and securing 
the rights of industry, the State quits the senate and takes 
refuge in the camp " — 

" Let us not be deluded by forms of government. The 
word may be republic in France, constitutional monarchy 
in Prussia, absolute monarchy in Austria, but the King is the 
same. Wherever there is a vast standing army the government 
is the government of the sword. Half a million of armed men 
must either be, or be not, in a state of discipline. If not . . 
it is not government but anarchy ; if they be in a state of 
discipline, they must obey one man, and that man is the 
master." ^ 

I have tried to track a large subject deserving a longer 
space. At any rate, I hope to have justified Disraeli's own 
language in the touching letter which breathed farewell to 
his constituents when failing health compelled him to accept 
an earldom — 

" Throughout my public life I have aimed at two chief 
results. Not insensible to the principle of progress, I have 
endeavoured to reconcile change with that respect for tradi- 
tion which is one of the main elements of our social strength ; 
and in external affairs I have endeavoured to develop and 
strengthen our empire, believing that a combination of achieve- 
ment and responsibility elevates the character and condition of a 
peopled 

It is not a little remarkable that this farewell re-echoes the 

* Life of Lord George Bentinck (1852). 



EMPIRE AND FOREIGN POLICY 245 

sentence quoted in my first chapter from his tract Wkai is he f 
as well as that later Runny mede Letter which, forty years 
earlier, he addressed to Sir Robert Peel.^ 

"... Spread it then, 
And let it circulate through every vein 
Of all your empire ; that where Britain's power 
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too." 

^ " . . . The end of their system ... is the glory of the empire and 
the prosperity of th e people." 



CHAPTER VII 
AMERICA— IRELAND 

I HAVE associated these two heads of discussion because 
they have long been coupled in home politics, at times 
disastrously, but now, it may be hoped, under favouring 
auspices. On the lighter side of American society and its 
first invasions of England he also touched. I shall touch these 
in the next chapter, reserving this for the political aspects of 
the question. My first chapter has already mentioned the 
paragraph in his earliest pamphlet, dedicated to Canning. 

Disraeli was always intensely interested in America, and 
watched her development with vigilance. He predicted her 
imperial future. He deprecated jealousy of her power, and, 
while England was incensed at her conduct in 1 871, he alone 
maintained that it was due to the prejudices of a class and the 
objects of a party, not to the national sentiment. He descried 
in America's essential democracy, which adheres even to her 
republican forms, one wholly peculiar to herself — a democracy 
of the soil, of which the base and root is land, underlying the 
gigantic commerce and colossal finance which are merely the 
froth of her wealth ; and in such a democracy he perceived an 
element of stability lacking to every other known democratic 
country. Before her crucial conflict was determined, he pro- 
phesied, too, among the difficulties that must confront her, that 
of a vast number of emancipated negroes. When the great 
struggle arose between the energy of the North and the 
traditions of the South, Disraeli also, alone among the leaders 
of his party, discerned both the probabilities of the winning 
side and its aptitude for moderation and self-control. For this 
sagacity he received Mr. Bright's approbation in 1865. When 

246 



AMERICA 247 

the civil war was in process, the gentry of England, naturally 
and generously sympathetic with the Southerners, had sus- 
pected that Canada might be threatened, and had wished 
something " to be done ;" Disraeli restrained and allayed them, 
Mr. Bright said : " With a thoughtfulness and statesmanship 
which you do not all acknowledge, he did not say a word from 
that bench likely to create a difficulty with the United States. 
I think his chief and his followers might learn something from 
his example." I quote this meed from an opponent, because 
Mr. Bryce, in his recent monograph, implies the contrary ; but 
then, Mr. Bryce sometimes trips, and has made the trifling 
mistake of naming " Lucian " as Disraeli's pet classic, whereas 
surely it was " Tacitus," 

Disraeli's leading idea as to America was that, although 
she had long achieved independence, her original spirit had 
remained colonial, but that her civil war would transform 
the past colony into a coming empire. Speaking in 1863, he 
said — 

" I am bound to say that from the first — and subsequent 
events have only confirmed my convictions — I have always 
looked upon the struggle in America in the light of a great 
revolution.^ Great revolutions, whatever may be their alleged 
causes, are not likely to be commenced, or to be concluded, 
with precipitation. Before the civil war commenced, the United 
States were colonies, because we should not forget that such 
communities do not cease to be colonies because they are 
independent. They were not only colonies, hit colonising ; and 
they existed under all the conditions of colonial life except 
that of mere political dependence. But even before the civil 
war, I think that all impartial observers must have been 
convinced that in that community there were smouldering 
elements which indicated the possibility of a change, and perhaps 
of a violent change. The immense increase of population ; the 
still greater increase of wealth ; the introduction of foreign 
races in large numbers as citizens, not brought up under the 
laws and customs which were adapted to a more limited, and 

^ Disraeli was always careful to distinguish between " revolution " — 
a permanent upheaval, and " insurrection " — a transitory outburst. Thus 
he expressly terms the continental movements of 1848, " insurrections." 



248 DISRAELI 

practically a more homogeneous, race ; the character of the 
political constitution, consequent, perhaps, on these circum- 
stances ; the absence of any theatre for the ambitio7is and refined 
intellects of the country, which deteriorated public spirit and 
lozvered public morality ; and, above all, the increasing influence 
of the United States upon the political fortunes of Europe ; — these 
were all circumstances which indicated the more than possibility 
that the mere colonial character of these communities might 
suddenly be violently subverted, and those imperial characteristics 
appear which seem to be the destiny of man. I cannot conceal 
from myself the conviction that, whoever in this House may be 
young enough to live to witness the ultimate consequences of 
this civil war, will see, whenever the waters have subsided, a 
different America from that which was known to our fathers^ 
and even from that of which this generation has had so much 
experience. It will be an A merica of armies, of diplomacy, of 
rival states and manoeuvring cabinets, of frequent turbulence, 
and probably of frequent tuars. With these views, I have 
myself, during the last session, exerted whatever influence I 
possessed in endeavouring to dissuade my friends from 
embarrassing her Majesty's Government in that position of 
politic and dignified reserve which they appeared to me to 
have taken upon this question. It did not appear to me, 
looking at these transactions across the Atlantic, not as events 
of a mere casual character, but being such as might probably 
influence, as the great French Revolution influenced, and is still 
influencing, European affairs, that there was on our part, due 
to the existing authorities in America, a large measure of 
deference in the difficulties which they had to encounter. At 
the same time, it was natural to feel . . . the greatest respect 
for those Southern States, who, representing a vast population 
of men, were struggling for some of the greatest objects of 
existence — independence and power. ..." 

Long before this — in 1856 — he had said, when America's 
attitude towards Central American troubles was irritating 
England, that in his opinion "... it would be wise if Eng- 
land would at last recognise that the United States, like all 
the great countries of Europe, had a policy, and a right to 
have a policy. It was foolish for England to regard with 



AMERICA 249 

jealousy any legitimate extension of the territory of the United 
States beyond the botmds originally fixed!' Such a jealousy 
would not arrest or retard the development of America ; but 
it might involve disasters. He instanced California and the 
gloomy forebodings at home with regard to it, none of which 
had been realised ; and he impressed upon the House that 
" It was the business of a statesman to recognise the necessity of 
an increase of power in the States!' The same year evoked 
another speech which forecasts the tenour of that in 1863, 
and is a fresh witness of the continuity of his imaginative 
insight, and his wakeful constancy of his purpose. After 
deprecating jealousy of America's political and commercial 
progress, he thus proceeded — 

"... I cannot forget that the United States, though 
independent, are still in some sense colonies, and are influenced 
by colonial tendencies ; and when they come in contact with 
large portions of territory scarcely populated, or at the most 
sparsely occupied by an indolent and unintelligent race of 
men, it is impossible — and you yourselves find it impossible — to 
resist the tendency to expansion ; and expansion in that sense is 
not injurious to England, for it contributes to the wealth of 
this country (let us say this in a whisper, lest it cross the 
Atlantic) more than it diminishes the power of the United 
States. In our foreign relations with the United States, 
therefore, I am opposed to that litigious spirit of jealousy 
which looks upon the expansion of that country and the 
advance of these young communities with an eye of jealousy 
and distrust." 

What he realised and first proclaimed, was that America 
was ceasing to be a mongrel blend or a colonial people, and 
was fast becoming a national community, with a voice, a 
vigour, a tendency, and in every department a twang, so to 
say, of its own ; that, moreover, this consolidation would tend 
towards empire, and that England must prepare for and 
reckon with it, especially as a partial crudeness and rudeness 
are to some extent inseparable from developments so sudden. 
It had not always been thus. Even long after the Puritan 
settlement, the primaeval charm of an aboriginal race clung 
to its forests and prairies. The strain, the science of race, 



250 DISRAELI 

fascinated Disraeli ; the unsubdued and the untameable ever 
appealed to him. Races could only be replaced by nations ; 
and the interval was always atomic and confused ; but it was 
also one of primitive dash and daring. As a youth, Disraeli, 
in Contarini, had dreamed of such a life. In Venetia ^ he had 
wondered whether the Atlantic would ever be so memorable 
as the Mediterranean ; whether pushfulness would ever attain 
refinement ; whether its provincialism might not be doomed 
to weakness. "... Its civilisation will be more rapid, 
but will it be ... as permanent ? . . . What America is 
deficient in is creative intelligence. // has no nationality. 
Its intelligence has been imported like its manufactured 
goods. Its inhabitants are a people, but are they a nation ? 
I wish that the empire of the Incas and the kingdom of 
Montezuma had not been sacrificed. I wish that the re- 
public of the Puritans had blended with the tribes of the 
Wilderness," 

Two dangers for England, however, emanated from 
America ; and perhaps they were connected. The one was 
American Anglophobia, the other Fenianism. The one 
might estrange our North American colonies ; the other was 
to imperil our national unity. 

In 1865, Disraeli addressed himself to the former. The 
American war was not then decided. He was not of opinion 
that, when it ended, our connection with Canada would bring 
us into collision with America. He did not believe that if 
the North was vanquished, it would "feel inclined to enter 
immediately into another struggle with a power not inferior 
in determination and in resources to the Southern States of 
America ; " and he saw many rocks ahead to divert the 
advancing tide — 

" I form that opinion because I believe that the people 
of the United States are eminently a sagacious people. I 
don't think they are insensible to the glory of great dominion 
and extended empire, and I give them equally credit for 
being influenced by passions which actuate mankind, and 
particularly nations which enjoy such freedom as they do. 
But ... I do not think they would seize the moment of 

^ Though pubhshed in 1836, it was written considerably earlier. 



AMERICA 251 

exhaustion as being the most favourable for the prosecution 
of an enterprise which would require great resources and 
great exertions." 

He then turned to the opinions which had been ventilated 
on American platforms and in certain American newspapers. 
He refused to judge the real American character and opinions 
by them. "I look upon them," he said, "as I should look 
upon those strange and fantastic drinks . . . which are such 
favourites on the other side of the Atlantic ; and I should as 
soon suppose this rowdy rhetoric was the expression of the 
real feelings of the American people, as that these potations 
formed the aliment and nutriment of their bodies." And he 
thus explained a point which I have already noticed : " There 
is another reason why this violent course will not be adopted. 
The democracy of America must not be confounded with the 
democracy of the Old World. It is not formed by the scum 
of turbulent cities : neither is it merely a section of an ex- 
hausted middle class, which speculates in stocks and calls that 
progress. It is a territorial democracy. Aristotle, who has, 
taught us most of the wise things we know, never said a 
wiser one than this — that the cultivators of the soil are the 
least inclined to sedition and to violent courses. Now, being 
a territorial democracy, their character has been formed and 
influenced, in a manner, by the property with which they are 
connected, and by the pursuits they follow ; and a sense of 
responsibility arising from the reality of their possessions 
may much influence their future conduct." On the other 
hand, this great change would certainly alter the spirit of 
society, and perhaps of government." But he saw clearly 
the difficulties that still beset her. "... We must recollect 
that even if the Federal Government should be triumphant, 
it will have to deal with most perplexing questions and with 
a discontented population. . . . The slave population will 
then be no longer slaves. There will be several millions of 
another race emancipated and invested with all the rights of 
freemen ; and, so far as the letter of the lazv is concerned, they 
will be upon an equality with the Saxon race, with whom they 
can possibly have no sympathy. . . . Nothhig tends more to 
the discontent of a people than that they should be in possessio?i 



252 DISRAELI 

of privileges afid rights which practically are not recognised, 
and which they do not enjoy ^ 

Such were the elements of disunion. To cope with 
them a strong government was requisite ; and that meant a 
centralising government with a military force at its command 
to uphold unity and order. Our colonies, on the other hand, 
were free from such obstacles, and were themselves developing 
an "element of nationality." They would not be assailed. 
But none the less, we must reckon with the United States 
in "the balance of power." He would not say that a class 
in America regarded old Europe "with feelings of jealousy 
or vindictiveness," "... but it is undeniable that the United 
States look to old Europe with a want of sympathy. They 
have no sympathy with a country that is created and sustained 
by tradition." We must, therefore, for the far future, foster 
and defend our colonies. If Canada had preferred absorp- 
tion by America, "... we might terminate our connection 
with dignity, and without disaster." But if, as appeared, 
Canada and our North American colonies desired deeply 
and sincerely "to form a considerable state and develop its 
resources, and to preserve the patronage and aid of England, 
. . . then it would be the greatest political blunder that could 
be conceived, for us to renounce, relinquish, and avoid the 
responsibility of maintaining our interests in Canada." 

American Anglophobia once more engaged his attention 
in 1 87 1. The pith of his criticism may be summarised by 
the purport of that elegant metaphor, " Twisting the lion's 
tail." With regard to the Alabama claims, their "indirect" 
demands, and the disputes with our colonies, which once 
more provoked British feeling, Disraeli now complained that 
America's communications with England had been couched 
in arrogant terms, while those with Russia and Germany had 
been courteous. He declared that it was caused by rowdy 
rhetoric addressed to " irresponsible millions." "... The 
reason of this offensive conduct," he continued, " is this : 
there is a party in America, who certainly do not monopolise 
the intelligence, education, and property of the country, and who, 
I believe, are not numerically the strongest, who attempt to 
obtain political power and excite political passion by abusing 



AMERICA 253 

England and its Government, because they believe they can 
do so with impunity. . . . The danger is this. Habitually 
exciting the passions of millions, some unfortunate thing 
happens, or something unfortunate is said in either country ; 
the fire lights up, it is beyond their control, and the two 
nations are landed in a contest which they can no longer 
prevent. . . . Though I should look upon it as the darkest 
hour of my life, if I were to counsel, or even to support, a 
war with the United States, still, the United States should 
know that they are not an exception to the other countries 
of the world, that we do not permit ourselves to be insulted 
by any other country in the world, and that they cannot be 
an exception." Nevertheless, with regard to these very 
matters, he reiterated as late as 1872 : "Ever since I sat in 
this House, I have always endeavoured to maintain and 
cherish relations of cordiality and confidence between the 
United Kingdom and the United States. I have felt that 
between those two great countries the material interests 
were so vast, were likely so greatly to increase, and were 
in their character so mutually beneficial to both countries, 
that they alone formed bonds of union. . . . But I could not 
forget that, in the relations between the United States and 
England, there was an element also of sentiment, which ought 
never to be despised in politics, and without which there can 
be no enduring alliance. When the unhappy Civil War 
occurred, I endeavoured, therefore, so far as I could, to main- 
tain ... a strict neutrality between the Northern and the 
Southern states. . . . There were some at a particular time 
. . . who were anxious to obtain the recognition of the 
Southern states by this country. I never could share that 
opinion. . . . We were of opinion that, had that recognition 
occurred, it would not have averted the final catastrophe, . . . 
and it would, at the same time, have necessarily involved this 
country in a war with the Northern states, while there were 
circtimstances then existing in Europe which made us believe 
that the war might not have been limited to A merical' 

I must now consider Fenianism. Every one now knows 
that Fenianism, at its inception in 1865, though its pretext 
was Ireland and its rallying centre America, was really an 



254 DISRAELI 

international ruffianism for the disruption of the foundations 
of social order — was, in fact, an alliance of anarchists with 
soldiers of misfortune. Disraeli discerned this from the first. 
Plots and conspiracies of all kinds piqued at once his curiosity, 
his skill, and his fancy. I was told, more than thirty years 
agOj by an old gentleman who was a schoolfellow of Disraeli, 
that he remembered a boyish mutiny. Disraeli headed the 
conspiracy, and the head-master himself listened at the key- 
hole, spellbound by the eloquence that controlled it. He 
loved to unravel their machinations, to contrast their under- 
ground conclaves with their open appearance. Conspiracies 
abound in Vivian Grey, Alroy, Iskander, Contarini Fleming, 
Sybil, and Tancred ; these very secret societies, together 
with those of Jesuitry, pervade Lothair. " Mirandola " and 
" Captain Bruges " are drawn from life. When Fenianism 
raged in Ireland, Disraeli himself crossed the Channel and 
attended their meetings. He spoke about what he knew ; 
and if secret societies were his hobby, he was yet undoubtedly 
right in ascribing most of the unforeseen abroad to their 
initiation. 

Adverting, in 1872, to its fatal influence on Ireland, he 
remarked : " . . . The Civil War in America had just ceased, 
and a band of military adventurers, Poles, Italians, and many 
Irishmen, concocted at New York a conspiracy to invade 
Ireland, with the belief that the whole country would rise to 
welcome them. How that conspiracy was baffled ... I need 
not now remind you. . . . You remember how the consti- 
tuencies were appealed to, to vote against the Government 
who had made so unfit an appointment as that of Lord Mayo 
to the Viceroyalty of India. It was by his great qualities 
when Secretary for Ireland, by his vigilance, his courage, 
his patience, and his perseverance, that this conspiracy was 
defeated. He knew what was going on at New York, just as 
well as what was going on in the city of Dublin ? . . ." And 
when, only a year before, the then Lord Hartington, at a 
moment of Fenian resurrection, withdrew his motion for a 
secret committee, Disraeli inveighed against an indecision 
that would be flashed in an hour across the Atlantic. This 
new movement of Fenianism brought America into dangerous 



AMERICA, FENIANISM 255 

relations with England. And in many disguises and under miti- 
gated forms, it half associated itself with the agitation for repeal, 
and the restless intrigues of the Papacy. Paid Nationalists 
and peasant priests were brought into connection with these 
Swiss guards of treason, ready to compass the destruction of 
property and authority in any country, and for any cause. 
It had been otherwise before its invention in America. When 
O'Connell — the great O'Connell as, despite everything, Disraeli 
publicly confessed when he died — supported Disraeli (who 
began as an " Independent ") at his first election in 1832, 
he did so on the common ground that both abominated the 
Whig system and desired the extension of reform. It was 
only afterwards, when O'Connell pronouncedly lent himself to 
what tended towards a repetition of " Captain Rock," and 
became at once an agitator for dismemberment^ and a 
pillar of the Whigs, that the young Disraeli denounced the 
fellowship of the dagger with the mitre, and incensed the 
degenerating patriot into insult. But the violence in Ireland 
of O'Connell's days was native. It sprang from, and it dis- 
graced, the soil. Fenianism, however, added to the ancient 
terrors of a country distressed to madness and goaded into 
crime, the worst horrors of cosmopolitan conspiracies mated 
with every movement for the unsettlement of Europe ; and 
for a while it tainted every breath of Irish nationalism, 
not only with detestation of England, but with enthusiasm 
for her enemies. The " Clan-na-gael " still foments the 
last vestiges of genuine discontent ; but the headquarters 
seem to have shifted from New York to a European capital. 
And yet so unconcerted and unprepared was Ireland her- 
self, however equipped and compact were these mercenary 
foreigners, that Disraeli makes " Captain Bruges " exclaim in 
Lothair, after his rescue of the hero at the meeting, held 
under the sham banners of St. Joseph and harangued by a 
mock priest, "They manage their affairs in general wonder- 
fully close, but I have no opinion of them. I have just 

^ Explaining, in 1835, his phrase that "the Whigs had grasped the 
bloody hand of O'Connell," Disraeli said : " I mean that they had formed 
an alliance with one whose policy was hostile to the preservation of the 
country, who threatens us with a dismemberment of the empire, which 
cannot take place without a civil war." 



256 DISRAELI 

returned from Ireland, where I thought I would go and see 
what they really are after. No real business in them. Their 
treason is a fairy tale, and their sedition a child talking in its 
sleep." 

And this brings me to Disraeli's ideas concerning the 
romantic, the persecuted, the generous, the witty, the pathetic 
Ireland. 

No one who has studied his career can question his intense 
sympathy. Many of his earliest friends had been brilliant 
Irishmen and Irishwomen. He too sprang from a race once 
persecuted, still pathetic, always witty and romantic. Already, 
in 1843, Disraeli had exclaimed: "You must reorganise and 
reconstruct the Government, and even the social state of 
Ireland. ... By really penetrating into the mystery of this 
great misgovernment " might be brought about " a state of 
society which would be advantageous both to England and 
Ireland, and which would put an end to a state of things 
that was the bane of England and opprobrium of Europe." 
But his ideas are conspicuously set forth in the great speech 
of 1844, which won the high praise of Macaulay, which 
Mr. Gladstone, some quarter of a century later, described as 
one of the "most closely woven tissues of argument and 
observation that had ever been heard in the House," and the 
reperusal of which he recommended as an intellectual " treat ; " 
though Disraeli himself then ironically observed that when he 
delivered it, nobody appeared to listen. " It seemed to me 
that I was pouring water upon sand, but it seems now that 
the water came from a golden goblet." He showed that, 
politically, Ireland was an open question. It was not the 
Tories who started the penal code. Mr. Pitt would have 
settled the question long ago had not the great war diverted 
his policy. Again, the grievances of Ireland were not due to 
Protestantism. They were owing to Puritanism — Puritanism 
in disloyal rebellion against which loyal Ireland rebelled. 
Ireland, he proved, was never so contented as in 1635. There 
was then perfect civil and religious equality. " At that period 
there was a Parliament in Dublin called by a Protestant king, 
presided over by a Protestant viceroy, and at that moment 



IRELAND 257 

there was a Protestant Established Church in Ireland ; yet 
the majority of the members of that Parliament were Roman 
Catholics. The government was at that time carried on by 
a council of state presided over by a Protestant deputy, yet 
many of the members of that council were Roman Catholics. 
The municipalities were then full of Roman Catholics. Several 
of the sheriffs also were Roman Catholics, and a very con- 
siderable number of magistrates were Roman Catholics. It 
is, therefore, very evident that it is not the necessary consequence 
of English connection — of a Protestant monarchy, or even of 
a Protestant Church — that this embittered feeling at present 
exists ; nor that that system of exclusion, which either in form 
or spirit has so long existed, is the consequence of Protestantism^ 

It was not the Protestantism, not the connection, but the 
kind of Protestantism, the sort of connection, the exclusive 
and selfish spirit, that filled Ireland with ferment. 

Hitherto Government had offered "a little thing in a 
great way."^ "Justice to Ireland" had been long cried on 
the housetops. What was the meaning of that cry? It 
only signified a forced identity of English institutions with 
Irish. Identity, however, was just what Ireland resented with 
disgust. 

What were her stumbling-blocks and stones of offence ? 
What was " the Irish question " } " One says it is a physical 
question, another a spiritual. Now it is the absence of the 
aristocracy, now the absence of railroads. It is the Pope one 
day, potatoes the next. Let us consider Ireland as we should 
any other country similarly situated. . . . Then we shall see 
a teeming population, which, with reference to the cultivated 
soil, is denser to the square mile than that of China ; created 
solely by agriculture, with none of those sources of wealth 
which are developed with civilisation, and sustained, conse- 
quently, on the lowest conceivable diet ; so that, in case of 
failure, they have no other means of subsistence upon which 
they can fall back. That dense population in extreme distress 

^ Cf. the " passionate carelessness " in " the old state of affairs " of" this 
experimental chapter in our history" in the speech of March, 1869. On 
the " Maynooth Grant" question, also, he observed, in 1846, that the 
boons offered to the Roman Catholics were, that " two should sleep in a 
bed instead of three." 
s 



258 DISRAELI 

inhabit an island where there is an Established Church which 
is not their Church, and a territorial aristocracy, the richest 
of whom live in distant capitals. Thus you have a starving 
population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church ; 
and, in addition, the weakest executive in the world. That is 
the Irish question. What were the remedies ? 

" To begin with, and before anything else, you must have 
a representative, a responsive, a strong Executive. Ireland 
is an exceptional piece of the United Kingdom, and she 
alone demands what is foreign to the English spirit — centrali- 
sation of government. Next, the administration must be 
impartial. There must be no exclusion and no favouritism. 
You must also have ecclesiastical equality. The Church in 
Ireland must change the tone of its temper. And you must 
' reconstrttct the social system ' of Ireland. ' All great things 
are difficult ; ' but it is more difficult to reconstruct a society 
than a party. Agitation only unsettles : it does not settle ; 
and it means the incompetence of a Government You must 
' create public opinion instead of following it ; lead the public 
instead of always lagging after and watching others.' 

"... What, then, is the duty of an English minister ? To 
effect by his policy all those changes which a revolution would do 
by force. ... It is quite evident that, to effisct this, we must 
have an Executive in Ireland which shall bear a much nearer 
relation to the leading classes and characters of the country than 
it does at present. There must be a much more comprehensive 
Executive, and then, having produced order, the rest is a 
question of time. There is no possible way by which the 
physical condition of the people can be improved by Act of 
Parliament." ^ 

So I read this pregnant deliverance. So, I believe, will 
read it any one who scans it closely in relation to its time 
and setting. In 1868, when there was capital to be made out 
of it, Mr. Gladstone did not so read it. Mr. Gladstone con- 
tended — and he had full right to contend — that, with regard 

^ Eight years before, Disraeli had written in the trenchant slap-dash 
of his Runny mede Letters : " . . . Then, Ireland must be tranquillised. 
So I think. Feed the poor and hang the agitators. That will do it. 
But that's not your way. It is the destruction of the English and Pro- 
testant interest that is the Whig specific for Irish tranquillity." 



IRELAND 259 

to the Church, at any rate, it spelled out " Destruction." 
Disraeli contented himself with retorting : " . . . There are 
many remarks which, if I wanted to vindicate , . . myself, I 
might legitimately make. . . . But I do not care to say it, 
and I do not wish to say it, because in my conscience the 
sentiment of that speech was right. . . ." My view is that it 
spelled out " Reconstruction." It would have settled Ireland 
and the Irish question by the principles of 1636 and on the 
lines of 1792, and not either by the Orange lodges of 179S, 
which answered Pitt's abortive schemes of improvement, or 
by the undemanded spoliation of 1868, which trebled the 
discontent it designed to allay. All Pitt's proposed measures 
were against exclusion. He tried to grant Ireland that free 
outlet for her manufactures to England which had proved her 
main source of discontent throughout the eighteenth century. 
He tried to include the Protestant Dissenters as well as the 
Roman Catholics in the avenues to political power. He was 
foiled by the selfishness and corruption of an Irish caste, and 
by the spread of the French Revolution to the Irish multitude. 
But in each case inclusion was his principle ; development, 
not destruction. Disraeli followed him. It was his hatred 
of exclusiveness that prompted his aversion alike to the 
Whiggism of the Grenvilles and the Toryism of Eldon. It 
was his devotion to wide and popular as opposed to democratic 
and class principles that drew him to the Toryism of Boling- 
broke and Wyndham, and enabled him to reconstruct the Tory 
party on its first but forgotten foundations. 

But if we want a practical comment on the speech of 
1844, we have it in an utterance of 1868. In 1868 he defined 
the position :"...! said the other night, as I say now, that 
I think you might elevate the status of the unendowed clergy 
in Ireland. . . . My opinion is, that if this system of concilia- 
tion, founded on the principle that in Ireland yo2t ought to 
create and not destroy, had been pursued, you might have 
elevated the Irish Church greatly to its advantage. You 
might have rendered it infinitely more useful. ... I do not 
think it impossible that you might have introduced measures 
which would have elevated the status of the unendowed 
clergy, and so softened and terminated those feelings of 



26o DISRAELI 

inequality which now exist, so that you might have had the 
same equality in the state of Ireland which you have in England. 
There is perfect equality in the state of the Dissenter in 
England, although his is no established Church. That state 
of things might exist in Ireland, if you had taken measures 
which would, among a sensitive people, have prevented a 
sentiment of humiliation. . . . Without disestablishment, 
without the difficulties and dangers of concurrent endowment, 
there might have been a system of Government grants both 
to Romanists and Dissenters for education and other public 
objects. That is how I interpret the ' ecclesiastical equality ' 
of 1844; 'to create and not to destroy.'"^ And, speaking 
again of his desire to supplement the educational means for 
the Roman Catholics, he said : " . . . That is in accordance 
with our uniform policy, ... a reconciliation between creeds 
and classes." 

After 1844 the Irish question still festered. Nowhere did 
the repeal of the Corn Laws inflict more immediate distress 
than in a country so dependent on native agriculture as 
Ireland was then and still remains. Pauperism became the 
crying evil of Ireland. Even in 1869, more than a quarter 
of the inhabitants were paupers. Pauperism defied " political 
palliatives." The Government of Ireland, despite his warnings, 
remained a weak one, and, alluding to this in a famous speech 
of 1869, he pertinently brought into prominence the fact that 
what strength it has depends now on its connection with 
England. "... The Government of Ireland is not a strong 
one ; its sanctions are less valid than those of the Govern- 
ment of England. It has not the historic basis which England 
rests upon. It has not the tradition which the English 
Government rests upon. It does not depend upon that vast 
accumulation of manners and customs which in England are 
really more powerful than laws or statutes." What Disraeli 
felt all along was that Ireland needed security for capital 
and variety of employment ; and that for these repose and 

^ He was alluding to Lord Derby's earlier efforts. And again, in 
another speech : " . . . The principles of our policy were, first, to create 
and not destroy ; and, secondly, to acknowledge that you could, not in 
any more effectual way strengthen the Protestant interest than by doing 
justice to the Roman Catholics." 



' IRELAND 261 

order were requisite. In November, 1868, alluding to the 
naturalisation of Fenian ism in Ireland at a time when Ireland 
was inherently contented and immeasurably superior to her 
plight in 1844 — when she had begun to rest and be thank- 
ful — he made the following comment : — 

". . . In Ireland there was always a degree of morbid 
discontent which the Fenians believe they may fan into flame, 
and which might lead to the revolutionary result they desire. 
The whole nature of the race will account for it. An Irish- 
man is an imaginative being. He lives in an island, in 
a damp climate and contiguous to the melancholy ocean. 
He has no variety of pttrstdt. There is no nation in the 
world that leads so monotonous a life as the Irish, because 
their only occupation is the cultivation of tJie soil before thein. 
. . . The Irishman in other countries, where he has a fair field 
for his talents in various occupations, is equal, if not superior, 
to most races. ... I may say with frankness that I think 
this is the fault of the Irish. If they led that kind of life 
which would invite the introduction of capital into the country, 
all this ability might be utilised ; and instead of those feelings 
which they acquire by brooding over the history of their 
country, a great part of which is merely traditionary, you 
would find men acquiring fortunes, and arriving at conclusions 
on politics entirely different from those which they now 
offer." 

The same outlook prompted him in another speech to 
regret the cry of a "conquered people" which the manipu- 
lators of grievance perpetually raised. Ireland was no more 
a conquered country than England. In both there had been 
conquerors and conquests ; ^ but in both a blend of races and 
institutions which had produced a nation in one, and made 
for nationality in the other. 

Time went on. Ireland had improved by rest. There 
was even prosperity in her borders. Fenianism v/as sub- 
siding.^ Classes were less estranged. Emigration had 

^ He pointed out that England experienced both Norman and Dutch 
conquests ; and that if Cromwell conquered Ireland, he conquered 
England too. 

^ " . . . Fenianism now is not rampant ; we think we have gauged its 



262 DISRAELI 

increased, but the Liberals welcomed emigration. Disraeli 
had risen into supreme power, and had constitutionalised the 
democracy by his Bill of 1867. The Radicals were incensed 
at the measure, which they had coveted in another form and 
with sectional objects. The stiffer even of his own party 
stood aghast, and some seceded. The Liberals began to 
nibble at the Radical bait. It is a curious fact that the 
Whigs, when in political despair, usually resort to a revo- 
lutionary measure. Already, over thirty years before, they 
had done so in connection with Ireland. Suddenly, without 
warning, without a popular mandate, or even an Irish out- 
cry for the upheaval, like a bolt from the blue came Mr. 
Gladstone's first great conversion from principles firmly 
protested only a year before.^ The question was sprung 
on both countries. He brought in, and in a manner so 
imperious that a solid portion of his own followers deserted 
him, his Act for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of 
the Irish Church ; not only for its severance from the State, 
but for its spoliation by the State. 

In the abstract its disestablishment, apart from its dis- 
endowment, was a great, a just, and a generous measure ; 
theoretically it was as sound as bimetallism. But its logical 
issues were incompatible with a united kingdom. They 
really, on examination, involved that separatist theory of the 
" right " of " nationalities " to be self-governing, of which he 
grew so fond. " Nationality " is here a wrong expression, for 
"nationality" is, by its essence, a term of union, and not of 
division. It should be " Locality." What is meant by this 
assumed "right" is, that particular races or particular pro- 
vinces, absorbed into or dependent on "nationalities," are 
entitled, from the mere fact of their geographical limits, to 
withdraw from the greater whole of which they are portions. 
This theory would revive the Heptarchy. It would make 
Jersey and Guernsey, or the Isle of Man, it would make Scot- 
land or Wales, a " nation." 

lowest depths, and we are not afraid of it " (Speech, April 3, 1868). As 
regards coercion, he always maintained that proved sedition alone 
justified it. 

^ He wrote that the question of the Church in Ireland was one totally 
without the pale of modern politics. His programme also at the dissolu- 
tion breathed not a word on the subject. 



IRELAND 263 

I say that Mr, Gladstone's measure, introduced when 
and how it was, and with its double purport, involved these 
conclusions, because if the mere existence of an " alien Church " 
justifies the severance of the ties between authority and 
religion, and the plunder of its revenues for purposes other 
than that for which they were created, then the same reason- 
ing would not only justify the abolition of an alien and the 
substitution of a native government, but also a refusal ^^ 
contribute any revenue to the deposed government at al,. 
There might be occasions demanding such a course. An 
oppressive Church, a tyrannical government, might well be 
swept away by a statesman with ears to hear the cries of 
impatience and eyes to see the ravages of injustice — a true 
statesman who, as Disraeli said in 1844, would accomplish by 
statute and conciliation what revolutions necessitate by force. 

But this was not one of them. The English Church itself 
was not practically resented, however its historical existence 
might be made to rankle in common with the other historical 
anomalies in Ireland, including its connection with England. 
The Church itself had been bettered, and might be still more 
improved. It was alive with opportunities. The Catholics 
and the Dissenters might, apart from the Establishment, which 
stood for British authority, be set upon a complete equality, 
and helped towards usefulness in many directions. The Church 
itself had proved a valuable educational centre. The Roman 
clergy called, not for its extinction, but for its disendowment ; 
and rather because they could not bear to think that it was 
there at all, just as they cannot bear to think that it exists in 
England, than because they wanted the revenues or suffered 
under the rebuffs or rivalry of an English Church. It was 
an argument, as Disraeli put it, that might be paralleled if all 
those Irish gentlemen who had small estates, but frequented 
the same society, were to say that their brethren of large 
estates should surrender their revenues to the State ; or if 
the unendowed hospitals of London were to exact the de- 
prival of the endowments enjoyed by St. Bartholomew's, 
St. Thomas's, and Guy's, not with the object of themselves 
sharing them, but out of wanton envy. 

Disraeli delivered three main speeches of great power, 



264 DISRAELI 

interest, and length on this subject. I shall not quote them 
in words, but shall only endeavour to present their pith. 

As regards the Disestablishment. 

He objected to it on principle — the principles outlined in 
my second chapter. The union of Church and State is a 
symbol of the Divine nature of government, which is the 
only truth underlying the obsolete fiction of the "Divine 
Right of Kings." He objected to it on policy. Divorce the 
religious principle from that of government, and it is the 
State that will suffer most. The result must be disorder. 
One day that might take a peculiar form. The political 
power once separated from the spiritual, a crisis might arise 
where the two might collide ; and where, though the political 
power might be right, the spiritual would appeal in haste to 
both passion and prejudice. 

As regards the Disendowment. 

He objected to it on principle. The plunder of public 
corporations was nothing new, but where the trust for which 
the corporation had been endowed was not observed in the 
application of the spoil by the State, which was a trustee, it 
was indefensible. It became confiscation. " Irish purposes " 
were vaguely hinted as the destination, but the repeal of the 
whisky duty might be an " Irish purpose ; " and where was 
the sense of dedicating some of this annexed property to 
Irish pauper lunatics ? Moreover, historically, he had always 
noticed that the spoil of the Church went eventually to enrich 
the large landed proprietors. 

He objected to it on policy. One of the causes of discon- 
tent was alleged to be that a particular Church was not 
connected with the State. Mr. Gladstone proposed to 
regenerate the country by having three Churches not con- 
nected with the State. Discontent, however, would still 
remain smouldering, and Disraeli prophesied that its next 
phase would threaten the tenure of land. What would 
be the effect in this relation of having three Churches 
disconnected from the State } The land question would, he 
predicted, assume many threatening forms with one purpose 
— a purpose against the rights and the duties of property. 
One Church was to be deprived of property which none of 



IRELAND 265 

the others claimed. Three sets of clergy were to be equally 
apart from the State. A class in the first place, therefore, 
and that a class of resident proprietors, was to be destroyed ; 
when it was agreed that one of the evils in Ireland was the 
want of a variety of classes and of resident proprietors. In 
the second, one of the avowed evils, the curse of Ireland, was 
poverty ; but here was an Act to confiscate property, and 
that property in its nature popular — the appanage of the 
people. 

When the land question should arise, there might ensue 
a triple danger, that of three sets of clergy divided in 
theology and matters of discipline, but united in discontent ; 
and the three might eventually demand the restoration of the 
national property ; and if it were refused, there might be 
revolution. England could afford no more revolutions. But, 
in any case, the spoliation of the Protestant clergy would 
breed jealousies among themselves also ; for they were 
actually invited and induced (by means which he exposed) 
to co-operate in their own expropriation. The plunder of the 
Catholic clergy had bred great discontent. The plunder of 
the Protestant clergy would do the same. And if discontent 
were left to grow as it went, the land outcry would produce 
others, and they again others in their turn and train. There 
would be no rest, no finality. It would be discontent without 
end. 

Far more than this, however, he objected to the ultimate 
consequences of this revolutionary departure. Confiscation 
was contagious. What was now applied — and applied in a 
form aggravated by its complications — to the national pro- 
perty, might one day be applied to private property. What 
was now applied to Ireland might one day be forcibly 
applied to England. If the public disaster of the dis- 
establishment and disendowment of the English Church ever 
took place, in deference to the jealousy of a class and not 
because of its own inherent decay as a great civil and 
ecclesiastical institution, it would be aided by the precedent 
of Ireland. 

; Such is the pith, though many of the details and much of 
the historical criticism are omitted ; nor have I here dealt 



266 DISRAELI 

with the Maynooth and " Regium Donum " problems and 
their bearings on these matters, which Disraeli discussed in 
full. But I have condensed enough to point the path of his 
ideas. 

Not all these dismal forebodings have yet been realised ; 
but many of them, unfortunately, came to pass. Ireland's 
discontent. Catholic discontent, were, neither of them, allayed 
by the disestablishment and disendowment of the Protestant 
Church. The clergy of that Church are still far from contented. 
The land question burst out within a brief space of Disraeli's 
prediction. It brought with it a long and fatal series of 
cumulative troubles ; and, as Disraeli had also predicted, the 
actual rights of civil property, the rights of civilised society, 
became invaded. " Compensation for disturbance " asserted 
the right to pay no rent. For a time the last state of Ireland 
was almost worse than the first. There were "months of 
murder, incendiarism, and every conceivable outrage." " The 
Executive absolutely abandoned their functions." Disraeli's 
last trumpet-call was to warn the country, in his celebrated 
letter to the Lord-Lieutenant, that there were those who 
wished to sever Ireland from England as parf of a scheme 
for the disruption of the Empire. In 1881 he adverted to 
that warning. 

"... Now what was the consequence of that declaration ? 
The present Government took an early opportunity soon after 
I had made that declaration, to express a contrary opinion. 
They said there was in Ireland an absence of crime and 
outrage, with a general sense of comfort and satisfaction. . . . 
I warned the constituencies that there was going on in Ireland 
a conspiracy which aimed at the disunion of the two countries, 
and probably at something more. I said that if they were 
not careful something might happen almost as bad as pesti- 
lence and famine. . . . My observations, of course, were 
treated with that ridicule which a successful election always 
secures. . . ." 

We all know the rest. The country was only saved by a 
secession of the light and leading of the Liberal party from 
their rash and misguided leader. Wisdom has been justified 
of her child. 



IRELAND 267 

In conclusion, let me say that none would have welcomed 
more gratefully than Disraeli the statesmanlike effort to 
settle the land question which has recently made England 
the landlord of Ireland. He might have descried in it 
elements of difficulty, and even of some danger for the future. 
But it would, in the main, I am confident, have received his 
unstinted support ; for it is founded on the rock of concilia- 
tion — on Disraeli's policy '* To create and not to destroy ^^ 



M 



CHAPTER VIII 

SOCIETY 

ACAULAY observes of Frances Burney that " while 

still a girl she had laid up such a store of materials 

for fiction as few of those who mix much in the 

world are able to accumulate during a long life. 

She had watched and listened to people of every class, from 

princes and great officers of State, down to artists living in 

garrets and poets familiar with subterranean cook-shops. 

Hundreds of remarkable persons had passed in review before 

her — English, French, German, Italian, lords and fiddlers, 

deans of cathedrals and managers of theatres, travellers 

leading about newly caught savages, and singing women 

escorted by deputy husbands." 

This is true of Disraeli. Long before he entered public 

life, before he knew the inimitable D'Orsay, or even the 

luminous Lyndhurst, before his most happy marriage, he had 

entered society at both doors — the gate of horn and the gate 

of ivory. As a stripling of twenty he had been sent, as we have 

seen, by Murray, the founder of his own fortune on Byron's 

fortune and misfortunes, to Abbotsford and Sir Walter Scott. 

The young Disraeli used to dub Murray "the Emperor." 

Murray described him as the most remarkable young man 

he had ever met ; " a deep thinker but thoroughly practical 

in his ideas," at once brilliant and solid, of a bright and airy 

disposition which endeared him to the young, and, himself 

unspoilt as " a child ; " singularly happy in his home 

relations, and "his father is my oldest friend." That father 

was himself a singular and remarkable man, who had attracted 

a distinguished coterie. He was Pye's early intimate and 

Thomas Baring's friend. His ties with Penn cemented his 

268 



SOCIETY 269 

love of Buckinghamshire. He was familiar with Southey, and 
he knew Mrs. Siddons. He conversed with Samuel Rogers '• 
and Tom Moore ; he had corresponded and dined with 
Byron, of whom " Disraeli the Younger " has recorded some 
striking traits. He knew all the men of quills and letters, 
including the antiquarian Bliss and Douce, many of the wits, 
and some of the " wit-woulds." His own brother-in-law, 
George Basevi, was an eminent architect,^ and architecture 
is often touched in the son's novels,^ Another member 
of the family was a conveyancer, and through him the 
son was first sent to read law with a solicitor, in whose 
office he read Chaucer, and was then entered at Lincoln's 
Inn. He had artistic acquaintances also. Barry, he knew 
well. Downman painted his wife, and Downman's brother was 
his associate. And there were also some men of affairs who 
visited Isaac Disraeli's house. The burrowing and irrepres- 
sible Croker, afterwards so mercilessly satirised as " Rigby," * 
and equally trounced, poor man, by Thackeray and Macaulay, 
seems to have been his occasional purveyor of politics. But 
for contemporary parties he cared little. He was a solitary 
student of the past ; excavating ancient manuscripts in the 
British Museum when the daily number of such scholars did 
not exceed six. He was shy, meditative, dreamy, and dis- 
passionate. But he was poet besides recluse ; his earliest court- 
ship, while Dr. Johnson lay dying, had been that of the muse. 
Sir Walter Scott included one of his lyrics in a published 
collection.^ He diversified his stern by lighter labours, and 

^ Rogers is mentioned in the very young Disraeli's Infernal 
Marriage — " The Pleasttres of Oblivion. The poet, apparently, is fond of 
his subject." 

2 He lost his life in restoring Ely Cathedral. Redesigned a portion of 
Belgrave Square. When Disraeli was at last returned to Parliament, he 
wrote to his sister, " So much for Uncle G. and his ' maddest of mad acts.' " 

3 He mentions several less familiar among the ancients. For instance, 
John of Padua in Endymion. 

* In a letter of the late 'forties to his sister, he says with surprise 
that Croker (who disclaimed having read it) should have greeted him with 
effusion. In the same correspondence he repeats a mot that the two 
most disgusting things in life — because you cannot deny them — are 
Warrender's wealth, and Croker's talents. 

' When they met. Sir Walter treated him with cordiality ; neverthe- 
less, in one of his late letters he styles him " un vieux crapaud.^' 



270 DISRAELI 

his novels, long since mouldered, caused some stir and attracted 
sympathy. After the romance of his early failures and the 
surprise of his early success, he set himself patiently down to 
work for ten years before he would print another line. His 
own father, who never understood but always humoured him, 
was a man of business, sanguine and prompt, yet gay and 
nonchalant, who lost fortunes and regained them.^ Disraeli 
the Younger united the two strains of his father and of his 
grandfather. He was a practical dreamer. 

Isaac Disraeli, then, gave his boy an opening to the 
literary world. Among his intimates was the shrewd solicitor, 
Mr. Austin, and his clever young wife, a literary coquette of 
talent, the aunt of the future Sir Henry Layard, the tran- 
scriber of Vivian Grey. Her salon was frequented, among 
others, by the Hooks ^ and the Mathews. With the 
Austins young Disraeli journeyed in Italy and Germany. 
From his father's library he thus emerged on a larger world. 
But he soon outstepped its bounds. After his long Eastern 
travels with Clay, and Meredith^ affianced to Disraeli's sister 
— a voyage on which Byron's Tita became Disraeli's valet, and 
on which he encountered the most opposite types as well as 
some curious adventures* — his own first books made him the 
lion of several seasons. He and Bulwer divided the honours 
of Bath, then still fashionable. Lyndhurst grew to depend on 
his assistance, and even advice ; Disraeli escorted him when 
as Chancellor he was present at Kensington at the accession 
of Queen Victoria ; Lyndhurst's daughter became an associate 
of Disraeli's sister ; and nothing gave Disraeli more unfeigned 
pleasure than the visits of Lyndhurst and Bulwer to his father 
at Bradenham. 

He not only wrote novels, pamphlets, and sonnets (his 

1 In 1761 he was even bankrupt. Cf. British Museum. Add. MS. 
36,191, f. 8. 

'^ Theodore Hook is the original of " Lucian Gay '' in Conlngsby. 

^ His acquaintance seems to have been made through " Platonist 
Taylor," who gave literary symposia. 

■• In Spain he rescued a lady from robbers. On the ^Egean he ai'med 
and drilled the crew against pirates. In Palestine, with difficulty and 
courage, he forced his way into the Mosque of Omar. In Egypt a pacha 
asked him to draft a constitution. 



SOCIETY 271 

vain ambition was to revolutionise poetry), but he seems to 
have contributed to the Edinburgh Review as well as to 
many magazines. In 1833, as has been noticed, he corre- 
sponded with its editor, Napier, with a view to a "slasher" 
on Morier's " Zohrab," which had been puffed in the Quarterly. 
Of the book he remarks, "A production in every respect 
more contemptible I have seldom met with ; " and of the 
puff, " This is what comes of putting a tenth-rate novelist at 
the head of a great critical journal." ^ 

Then followed Gore House, with its high Bohemian wits, 
its low Bohemian buffoons, its loose celebrities, its " man of 
destiny," Louis Napoleon ; its laughter and its tears ; its 
Watteau-like parterres, and the generous, erring Egeria of 
the grot.^ Then, too, came that fascinating circle of the 
Sheridans, which united sparkling talent to entrancing beauty 
in extraordinary charm. But then also came the duller round 
of High Mayfair — the Londonderrys and the Buckinghams. 
Among diplomatists at this period he knew Pozzo. He had 
seen, or met, or known the fathers or grandfathers of most of 
the aristocracy which, forty years afterwards, he was to lead. 
Resolved from the first, as he said in an early letter, "to 
respect himself, the only way to make others respect you ; " 
an outrageous dandy ; sometimes in deplored debt, often in 
surmounted scrapes, always in good humour, he had sur- 
veyed the whole kaleidoscope of society, artificial as well as 
natural, before, or soon after, he turned thirty years of age ; 
from the pachas and intriguers of the East, to the leaders and 
amusers of the West ; from Ali and the governors, admirals, and 
garrisons of Malta and Gibraltar, to solemn busy-bodies in 
and out of place ; the fops and flutterers in and out of society ; 
men famous who were destined to obscurity, men obscure who 
were vowed to fame ; eccentrics and platitudinarians ; the 
Upper Ten — "the two thousand Brahmins who constitute the 

» Cf. British Museum Add. MS. 34,616, f. 45. I have referred to this 
in Chapter I. 

2 " Sure you were to find yourself surrounded by celebrities, and men 
were welcomed there if they were clever, before they were famous, which 
showed it was a house that regarded intellect, and did not seek merely 
to gratify its vanity by being surrounded by the distinguished." 
— Coningsby. 



2 72 DISRAELI 

world " — and the lower ten thousand ; from the eccentric 
Urquhart to " L. E. L.," "the Sappho of Brompton," and, it 
would seem, Davison the future musical critic. An early 
letter, probably addressed to him, lies before me. It may be 
of passing interest to subjoin it : — 

" My dear Davison, 

" I am very vexed that I missed you this morning. 
I arrived in town to-day, and am now living the vie solitaire in 
Bloomsbury. Will you come and ameliorate a bachelor's 
torments by partaking of his goblet .-' 

" I am alone, as Ossian says, but luckily not upon the 
hill of storms. 

" Instead of that catch-cold situation, a good fireside will 
greet you. 

" Mind you come. 

"Yours ever, 

" B. Disraeli." 
" Excuse scrawl, etc. 6 o'clock." 

The society of those days still retained much of the 
Regency's tinsel. It glittered far more than it shone. Society 
was not then quite the Dresden china shop with porcelain 
figures of beaux and boxers, of topers and bull-dogs, of satyrs 
and nymphs, of city swains and simpering shepherdesses, 
that it had been ten or fifteen years before. Byron, with his 
savage sincerity, may be said to have dashed that smooth 
farrago to fragments. But it remained a society of veneer 
and affectation. It was a less natural age than our own, with 
fewer ideals and less outward movement. It was a more 
boisterous age than our own ; public opinion exercised far less 
pressure. It was at once a coarser, a more sentimental and a 
more romantic, if a more bombastic age than ours. There 
still lingered the curiosity of Dr. Johnson's age for the tittle- 
tattle of voyagers and the curiosities of barbarism. But it 
was not in the main a more material age, or, under the 
surface, a much more selfish one. Sympathy was local then. 
" The people were only half born," It was, however, certainly 
a generation far more fastidious and exclusive ; and at the 
same time it was certainly more appreciative of genius. You 



SOCIETY 273 

could then appeal to the few where you cannot now appeal to 
the many ; for the few then had neither the narrowness of the 
bourgeoisie nor the unlimited appetite of the million. 

" The invention," smiles Disraeli so early as in his mock- 
classical squib, The Infernal Marriage, " by Jupiter of an 
aristocratic immortality, as a reward for a well-spent life on 
earth, appears to me to have been a very ingenious idea. It 
really is a reward very stimulative of good conduct before we 
shuffle off this mortal coil, and remarkably contrasts with the 
democracy of the damned. The Elysians, with a splendid 
climate, a teeming soil, and a nation made on purpose to wait 
upon them, of course enjoyed themselves very much. . . . 
The Elysians, indeed, being highly refined and gifted . . . 
were naturally a very liberal-minded race and very capable of 
appreciating every kind of excellence. If a gnome, or a 
sylph, therefore, in any way distinguished themselves, . . . 
aye ! indeed, if the poor devils could do nothing better than 
write a poem or a novel, they were sure to be noticed by the 
Elysians, who always bowed to them as they passed by, and 
sometimes, indeed, even admitted them into their circles." 

What Disraeli detested was what he termed, even in 
Vivian Grey, " society on anti-social principles" What he liked 
was a distinct and distinctive circle, interchanging its 
ideas — " free trade in conversation." In his social, as in his 
political outlook, he craved inclusiveness on the basis of 
excellence, and not either the restrictedness of a caste or the 
miscellany of a multitude. In this sense all society should be 
" aristocratic." And he always felt that, as a rule, it was 
precisely the middle-class element, contrasted either with 
those who inherited the finer perceptions of breeding or 
with those — the gallery — born with perceptive instincts — that 
is in the main deficient in these respects. "... The stock- 
brokers' ladies took off the quarto travels and the hot-pressed 
poetry. They were the patronesses of your patent ink and 
your wire-wove paper. That is all past. . . ." -^ What he 
disrelished was the meaner sort of mediocrity, except when it 
was unassuming and useful. 

" High breeding and a good heart," he demands in 

' Vivian Grey. 
T 



2 74 DISRAELI 

Lothair for the " perfect host." " To throw over a host," he 
has also written, " is the most heinous of social crimes. It 
ought never to be pardoned. ..." "... She, too," he says 
of the Duchess in Coningsby — who " was one of the delights of 
existence," — " was distinguished by that perfect good breeding 
which is the result of nature and not of education ; for it may 
be found in a cottage and may be missed in a palace. 'Tis 
a genial regard for the feelings of others that springs from the 
absence of selfishness. . . . Nothing in the world could have 
induced her to appear bored when another was addressing 
or attempting to amuse her. She was not one of those vulgar 
fine ladies who meet you one day with a vacant stare, as if 
unconscious of your existence, and address you on another in 
a tone of impertinent familiarity." " This is a lesson for you 
fine ladies," says "Egremont" in Sybil, "who think you can 
govern the world by what you call your social influences ; 
asking people once or twice a year to an inconvenient crowd 
in your house ; now haughtily smirking, and now impertinently 
staring at them, and flattering yourselves all this time that to 
have the occasional privilege of entering your saloons, and the 
periodical experience of your insolent recognition, is to be a 
reward for great exertions, or, if necessary, an inducement 
to infamous tergiversation." And, indeed, the " Zenobia " of 
Endymion, who was Lady Jersey, did sometimes condescend 
to practise these shifts of political ambition.^ But in high 
society with low standards, there were worse depths than 
the backstairs patronage of party recruits. "Never," as 
the fine sentence prefixed to Sybil recalls, "were so many 
gentlemen, and so little gentleness." The contemptuous 
materialism of " Monmouth House," the elegant indifference 
of "Lord Eskdale," around which revolve the satellites and 
parasites, social and political — the folks that made Selwyn 
exclaim when a great nobleman's golden dinner-service was 

^ He liked to descant on the fast-fading and now vanished political 
Salon. That of " Lady St. Julians," who " was not likely to forget her 
friends," will be recalled by perusers of Sybil. In a Glasgow speech — 
recently revived by an evening journal — he praised, with admiration, 
Lady Palmerston's, where diplomatists, at loggerheads with the minister, 
could meet him in the neutral zone of his gifted wife's catholic hospitahty. 



SOCIETY 275 

up to auction — " Lord, how many toads have eaten off this 
plate ! " 

" Among the habitual dwellers " (this from Coningshy) " in 
these delicate halls there was a tacit understanding, a preva- 
lent doctrine, that required no formal exposition, no proofs 
and illustrations, no comment, and no gloss, which was, 
indeed, rather a traditional conviction than an impartial 
dogma — that the exoteric public were, on many subjects, the 
victims of very vulgar prejudice, which these enlightened 
personages wished neither to disturb nor to adopt." " Society," 
he said, alluding to its treatment of Byron in Venetia, "is 
all passions and no heart." In Vivian Grey (as to the circum- 
stances of which I shall say something in my last chapter) the 
father (that is, Disraeli's father) thus admonishes the boyish son. 

"... You are now inspecting one of the worst portions 
of society in what is called the great world (St. Giles' is bad, 
but of another kind), and it may be useful, on the principle 
that the actual sight of brutal ebriety was supposed to have 
inspired youth with the virtue of temperance. . . . Let me 
warn you not to fall into the usual error of youth, in fancying 
that the circle you move in is precisely the world itself Do 
not imagine that there are not other beings, whose benevolent 
principle is governed by finer sympathies, and by those nobler 
emotions which really constitute all our public and private 
virtues, I give you this hint, lest, in your present society, 
you might suppose these virtues were merely historical." 
Speaking of "Vivian Grey" under the guise of "Contarini 
Fleming's " first novel, Disraeli makes his hero ejaculate : 
" All the bitterness of my heart, occasioned by my wretched 
existence among their false circles, found its full vent. Never 
was anything so imprudent. Everybody figured, and all 
parties and opinions alike suffered." Still more did he 
despise " the insolence of the insignificant." 

What he admired in whatever form — even when incom- 
patible with society — was purpose with personality. This is 
manifest in all his early novels, conspicuous in his later ones. 
The two heroes of Venetia — Byron and Shelley^ — are portrayed 

^ " Great as might have been the original errors of Herbert . . . they 
might, in the first instance, be traced rather to a perverted view of 
society than of himself." 



2 76 DISRAELI 

from this point of view. Even the hysterical purpose of Lady 
Caroline Lamb in the person of " Lady Monteagle " is recog- 
nised ; and of Byron he causes his characters to speak in 
Vivian Grey : " There was the man ! And that such a man 
should be lost to us at the very moment that he had begun 
to discover why it had pleased the Omnipotent to have 
endowed him with such powers ! " — " If one thing were more 
characteristic of Byron's mind than another, it was his strong, 
shrewd common sense, his pure, unadulterated sagacity." — 
" The loss of Byron can never be retrieved. He was indeed 
a real man ; and, when I say this, I award him the most 
splendid character which human nature need aspire to."^ 
The very intellectual purpose of comparative purposelessness, 
of dilettante taste, attracted him. This is how he addresses 
"Luttrell" in The Young Duke : "... Teach us that wealth 
is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, and that 
splendour is not heart. Teach us that taste is a talisman 
which can do greater wonders than the millions of the loan- 
monger. Teach us that to vie is not to rival ; and to imitate 
not to invent. Teach us that pretension is a bore. Teach us 
that wit is excessively good-natured, and, like champagne, 
not only sparkles, but is sweet.^ Teach us the vulgarity of 
malignity. Teach us that envy spoils our complexions, and 
that anxiety destroys our figure. Catch the fleeting colours 
of that sly chameleon. Cant, and show what excessive trouble 
we are ever taking to make ourselves miserable and silly. 
Teach us all this, and Aglaia shall stop a crow in its course, 
and present you with a pen, Thalia hold the golden fluid 
in a Sevres vase, and Euphrosyne support the violet-coloured 
scroll." 

So, too, the energetic personality of D'Orsay aroused his 
enthusiastic friendship, and drew from him, some twenty 
years after that ambrosial figure had vanished, the tribute of 
". . . the most accomplished and the most engaging cha- 
racter that has figured in this century, who, with the form and 

* Byron also figures in Ixion. " All is mystery, and all is gloom, and 
ever and anon, from out the clouds a star breaks forth and glitters, and 
that star is Poetry." 

^ This recalls us to the 'thirties. In a letter to his sister he mentions 
the wineglass shape as a new receptacle for champagne. 



SOCIETY 277 

universal genius of an Alcibiades, combined a brilliant wit and 
a heart of quick affection, and who, placed in a public position, 
would have displayed a courage, a judgment, and a com- 
manding intelligence which would have ranked him among 
the leaders of mankind." D'Orsay speaks and acts to the life 
as " Count Mirabel " in The Young Duke. And, in a too 
unfamiliar passage of The Young Duke, he thus also embalms, 
I fancy,^ the memory of Lady Blessington's maligned charm 
under the veil of " Lady Aphrodite." 

"... We are not of those who set themselves against 
the verdict of society, or ever omit to expedite, by a gentle 
kick, a falling friend. And yet, when we just remember 
beauty is beauty, and grace is grace, and kindness is kind- 
ness, although the beautiful, the graceful, and the amiable 
do get in a scrape, we don't know how it is, we confess 
it is a weakness, but, under these circumstances, we do not 
feel quite inclined to sneer. But this is wrong. We should 
not pity or pardon those who have yielded to great 
temptation, or, perchance, great provocation. Besides, it is 
right that our sympathies should be kept for the injured." 
Endeavour and individuality he reverenced and recognised. 
Tact, the charity of manners, he admired.^ But for aim- 
lessness, whether callous or random, whether patrician or 
plebeian — whether of " Lord Marney," who said to " Egre- 
mont," "I am your elder brother, sir, whose relationship to 
you is your only claim to the consideration of society," and 
was answered, " A curse on the society that has fashioned 
such claims . . . founded on selfishness, cruelty, and fraud, 
and leading to demoralisation, misery, and crime ; " or of 
"Rigby," who called his record in Debrett of the marriage 
successfully schemed for his patron, " a great fact." To such as 
these he gave no quarter ; and he scalped them with a wit 
and an irony that has rarely been equalled. 

^ It may, however, refer to a certain Lady Sykes. 

2 There is another similar passage so early as in Popanilla, which 
says that "... there were those who paradoxically held all this Elysian 
morality was one of great delusion, and that this scrupulous anxiety about 
the conduct of others arose from a principle, not of Purity, but Corriiption 
The woman who is " talked about,'' these sages would affirm, is generally 
virtuous, ..." But the allusion may here be to Queen Caroline. 



278 DISRAELI 

And he loved startling contrasts. " Whatever they did," 
he says in The Infernal Marriage, " the Elsyians were careful 
never to be vehement." Disraeli liked to break the monotone 
of society's polished surface by pronounced and original types 
of race, of class, of passion, of enterprise ; the Roman among 
the European- Americans, the Arabian, the Syrian, the Greek, 
the Gaul among the Franks. He revelled in romantic women, 
muses, or prophetesses, who lead forlorn movements, or rally 
broken fortunes ; in men whom they cheer and kindle ; in 
public spirits ; in sudden and unexpected revolutions of 
fortune, and sudden and unforeseen revelations of character. 
To himself in his first youth might adhere the phrase with 
which he then labelled " Popanilla : " " He looked the most 
dandified of savages, and the most savage of dandies." He 
liked to pit the Bohemian against the noble, and the valet 
against the hero ; the " light children of dance and song " 
against their heavy patrons ; to display the power of career 
even in the lodginghouse-keeper's daughter; to depict the 
aristocracy of the master working man ; to analyse and 
contrast the ironies of the struggle, the social tragedy of 
illusion, and the social farce of fashion. "... 'Your mind 
is opening, Ixion,' " says Mercury, in that brilliant skit which 
Disraeli penned before he was celebrated ; " ' you will soon be 
a man of the world. To the left, and keep clear of that star ' — 
* Who lives there ? ' — ' The Fates know, not I. Some low 
people who are trying to shine into notice. 'Tis a parvenu 
planet, and only sprung up into space within this century. 
We don't visit them.' " " Sybil " herself, it should be re- 
membered, is an aristocrat born, but not bred, while half 
" Egremont's " Norman relations are cads or snobs. 

He loved, too, society's foibles — to hit off the precocious 
wiseacres of the golden youth. " . . .A young fellow of two- 
or three-and-twenty knows the world as men used to do after 
as many years of scrapes. I wonder whether there is such a 
thing as a greenhorn ? Effie Crabbs says the reason he gives 
up his house is that he has cleaned out the old generation, and 
that the new generation would clean him." ^ To banter " those 
uncommonly able men who only want an opportunity," the 

^ Coningsby. 



SOCIETY 279 

philosophers and the puppies ; to jest, as he does in Popanilla, 
at legal fictions ; to poke fun at the " great orator, before a 
green table, beating a red box," or the prattlers on science 
in "gilded saloons;" to depict the pyramidal selfishness 
but unruffled pride of Lord Hertford in " Lord Monmouth " 
— Thackeray's " Lord Steyne ; " to chronicle the paean of 
" Mrs. Guy Flouncey " — a precursor of " Becky Sharp " — when 
she wins the invitation to the great house : " My dear, we 
have done it at last ! " or those whose summum bonum is to 
have ten thousand a year and be thought to have five ; or 
those waiters on dying Mammon, who, when the will is 
read, "all become orderly and broken-hearted;" or the 
bored good humour of the Radical noble, who was almost a 
Communist except as regarded land — " as if a fellow could 
have too much land ; " to burlesque the whole medley of blue 
bores and bore-blues, of red-tape, and peas-on-drums, the 
Jacks-in -office and the Jacks-in-boxes, of " nobs and snobs," 
of " statesmen, fiddlers, and buffoons." But it should not be 
forgotten that he ever kept a warm place in his heart for 
sailors, whom he regarded as among the most natural and 
delightful of mankind.'^ 

It was not only the big shams and little follies of society 
that revolted or amused him. He held, also, that melancholy 
and dulness were social crimes. " If a man be gloomy, let 
him keep to himself. No man has a right to go croaking 
about society, or, what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief. 
These fellows should be put in the pound. We like a good 
broken heart or so now and then ; but then one should retire 
to the Sierra Morena mountains and live upon locusts and 
wild honey, not dine out with our cracked cores. . . . " ^ And 
among breaches of social tact, he most disliked those minor 
monomanias which make the bore. " Never," he once warned 
a young man, " discuss ' The Letters of Junius,' or ' The Man 
in the Iron Mask.' " Some of his happiest conversations are 
to be found in the Lothair colloquies at Muriel Towers. 

Society used to depend on conversation much more than it 
does now, when there is so much hurry, so much wealth, so 
many amusements, so little privacy, and so much printed 
1 Venetiaj The Young Duke. ^ Ibid. 



28o DISRAELI 

about it that practically there is no compact society at all — 
merely a touring menagerie. Disraeli, in one of his earlier 
novels/ has an excellent essay in miniature on social 
conversation : — 

" The high style of conversation where eloquence and 
philosophy emulate each other, ... all this has ceased. It 
ceased in this country with Johnson and Burke, and it requires 
a Johnson and a Burke for its maintenance. There is no 
mediocrity in such intercourse, no intermediate character 
between the sage and the bore. The second style, where 
men, not things, are the staple, but where wit and refinement 
and sensibility invest even personal details with intellectual 
interest, does flourish at present, as it always must in a highly 
civilised society. . . . Then comes your conversation man, 
who, we confess, is our aversion. His talk is a thing apart, 
got up before he enters the company from whose conduct it 
should grow out. He sits in the middle of a large table, 
and, with a brazen voice, bawls out his anecdotes about Sir 
Thomas or Sir Humphry, Lord Blank or Lady Blue. He 
is incessant, yet not interesting ; ever varying, yet always 
monotonous. Even if we are amused, we are no more 
grateful for the entertainment than we are to the lamp over 
the table for the light which it universally sheds, and to yield 
which it was obtained on purpose. We are more gratified by 
the slight conversation of one who is often silent, but who speaks 
from his momentary feelings, than by all this hullabaloo. Yet 
this machine is generally a favourite piece of furniture with 
the hostess. You may catch her eye, as he recounts some 
adventure of the morning, which proves that he not only 
belongs to every club, but goes to them, light up with 
approbation ; and then when the ladies withdraw, and the 
female senate deliver their criticism on the late actors, she 
will observe with a gratified smile to her confidante^ that the 
dinner went off well, and that Mr. Bellow was very strong 
to-day. All this is horrid, and the whole affair is a delusion. 
A variety of people are brought together, who all come as 
late as possible, and retire as soon, merely to show that they 
have other engagements. A dinner is prepared for them, 

1 Ibid. 



SOCIETY , 281 

which is hurried over, in order that a certain number of dishes 
should be— not tasted, but seen. And provided that there 
is no moment that an absolute silence reigns ; that, besides 
the bustling of the servants, the clattering of the plates and 
knives, a stray anecdote is told, which, if good, has been 
heard before, and which, if new, is generally flat ; provided 
a certain number of certain names of people of consideration 
are introduced, by which some stranger, for whom the party 
is often secretly given, may learn the scale of civilisation of 
which he this moment forms a part ; provided the senators 
do not steal out too soon to the House, and their wives to 
another party — the hostess is congratulated on the success 
of her entertainment." He much preferred the conversation 
of "Pinto," whose raillery, unremembered, amused and 
" flattered the self-love of those whom it seemed sportively 
not to spare. . . . He was not an intellectual Croesus, but his 
pockets were full of sixpences." But then, " Pinto " did not 
quite belong to the lower social stratum above characterised. 
That Disraeli had not altered his opinion of it after forty years' 
immense and intimate experience is shown by the description 
in Lothair of the " reception " of " Mrs. Putney Giles." Not 
that Disraeli by any means inclined to the " call-a-spade-a- 
spade " view of conversation. To say all one thought, to 
be rudely frank, would destroy social converse. "... As 
Pinto says, if every man were straightforward in his opinions, 
there would be no conversation. The fun of talk is to find 
out what a man really thinks, and then contrast it with the 
enormous lies he has been telling all dinner, and perhaps 
all his life," " Never argue," he once wrote, " and, if con- 
troversy arises, change the subject." And he also recognised 
that " talk to man about himself, and he will listen for hours." 
"All women are vain, some men are not." He believed, 
too, in the saying of Swift, that a community of ailments is 
a fastener of friendship. Once when an intimate asked Lord 
Beaconsfield what he did when his acquaintanceship was 
claimed by many whose faces and names were unfamiliar, 
but who professed to have known him in youth, he answered, 
" I always say one thing — * Quite so, quite so ! and how is 
the old complaint ? ' " 



282 DISRAELI 

I have said that in his youth Disraeli had occasionally 
been in debt.'- No one ever reprobated it more, though no 
one, except Goldsmith and Sheridan, has also extracted more 
humour out of it, as is attested by the episode of "Mr. 
Levison " and the coals in Henrietta Temple? In this novel 
he thus moralises — 

" If youth but knew the fatal misery that they are entailing 
on themselves the moment they accept a pecuniary credit 
to which they are not entitled, how they would start in 
their career ! how pale they would turn ! how they would 
tremble, and clasp their hands in agony at the precipice on 
which they are disporting. Debt is the prolific mother of 
folly and of crime ; it taints the course of life in all its dreams. 
Hence so many unhappy marriages, so many prostituted pens 
and venal politicians. It hath a small beginning, but a giant's 
growth and strength. When we make the monster we make 
our master, who haunts us at all hours, and shakes his whip 
of scorpions forever in our sight. The slave hath no overseer 
so severe. Faustus, when he signed the bond with blood, 
did not secure a dream more terrific. But when we are young 
we must enjoy ourselves. True ; and there are few things 
more gloomy than the recollection of a youth that has not 
been enjoyed. ..." 

He was never a gambler. One of the most striking 
passages of Vivian Grey gives the story — which would make 
a strong play — of a man in high place, led on by even noble 
motives to game, until he sharped at play, and was rescued 

^ The brilliant Mr, T. P. O'Connor, in the first edition of a " Bio- 
graphy " (which, perhaps, now he regrets), troub ed himself to search out 
and enumerate the writs out against Disraeli in the early 'thirties. Most 
of his debts were for elections and " backing " his friends' bills. From 
friends he never borrowed ; always from " Levison's." Vivian Grey was 
originally written to defray a debt. 

2 Levison offers the required advance, ;^7oo in cash, ^800 in coals. 
The captain expostulates, and is answered : " Lord ! my dear Captin, 
^800 worth of coals is a mere no think. With your connection you will 
get rid of them in a morning. All you have got to do ... is to give 
your friends an order on us, and we will let you have cash at a little dis- 
count. . . . Three or four friends would do the thing. . . . Why, 'tayn't 
four hundred chaldron, Captin. . . . Baron Squash takes ten thousand 
of us every year j but he has such a knack ; he gits the clubs to take them." 



SOCIETY 283 

from disgrace by friendship ; and in The Young Duke is the 
thrilHng romance of the career of the founder of Crockford's. 

The Macaronis were replaced by the Beaux ; the Beaux 
in their turn by the more florid Dandies ; until, at last, in the 
'seventies, appeared the " Swells," the heavy, if grand, Blunder- 
bores, sworn to bachelor indulgence, who thought that " every 
woman should marry, but no man," the exception only being 
if a girl sprang from " an affectionate family, with good 
shooting and first-rate claret." Disraeli was interested in 
the "swells." In a measure he had created them, because 
he had reconciled the people to the nobles, and the " swell " 
was a term embodying the people's homage. But in this 
phase Disraeli saw something comic and barbaric. " St. 
Aldegonde," himself a gigantic " swell," could not bear the 
" swells." When he met them he described them as " a social 
jungle in which there was a great herd of animals." 

And with the " swells " began something of that " free- 
and-easiness " which hails from modern Columbia, and has 
now leavened society with its licence and its slang. " Free- 
and-easiness is all very well," once laughed Disraeli to a 
friend, " but why not be a little freer and a little less easy 1 " 
" His spirit," he says of " Coningsby," " recoiled from that gross 
familiarity that is the characteristic of modern manners, and 
which would destroy all forms and ceremonies, merely because 
they curb and control their own coarse convenience and ill- 
disguised selfishness." With the " swells " came also another 
social change — the diffusion not only of wealth, but of taste. 
A great lady assures " Lothair " that he will be surprised to 
see so many well-dressed and good-looking people at the 
opera, that he never beheld before. 

Political society pervades all Disraeli's novels. Only two 
phases of it need here be mentioned. The tiny coteries who 
dine together twice a week and " think themselves a party." 
They appear in Sybil; they reappear in Endymion. And the 
breakfast gatherings of the 'forties, peculiar, as Disraeli noted, 
to Liberals. " It shows a restless, revolutionary mind," mocks 
" Lady Firebrace," " that can settle to nothing, but must be 
running after gossip the moment they are awake." But two say- 
ings, not directly with regard to society, may in this connection. 



284 DISRAELI 

however, be recorded. Both are from The Young Duke. 
". , . He was always offended and always offending. Such 
a man could never succeed as a politician — a character who, 
of all others, must learn to endure, to forget, and to forgive." 
The second was prophetic : " One thing is clear — that a man 
may speak very well in the House of Commons and fail very 
completely in the House of Lords. There are two distinct 
styles requisite. I intend in the course of my career, if I 
have time, to give a specimen of both. In the Lower House, 
' Don Juan ' may perhaps be our model ; in the Upper House, 
' Paradise Lost' " 

As for club existence, the "lounging, languid men" who 
spend their time in crossing from Brooks's to Boodle's and 
from Boodle's to Brooks's," has he not characterised "those 
middle-aged nameless gentlemen of easy circumstances, who 
haunt clubs and dine a great deal at each others' houses and 
chambers ; men who travel regularly a little, and gossip 
regularly a great deal ; who lead a sort of facile, slipshod 
existence, doing nothing, yet mightily interested in what 
others do ; great critics of little things . . . peering through 
the window of a club-house as if they were discovering a 
planet " ? And as for civic hospitality, he sums it up best, 
perhaps, in the Endymion epigram : " Turtle makes all men 
equal." 

He felt all along that, after all, true society is at home, 
and not with " polished ruffians ; " the " courtesy of the 
heart" was preferable to that "of the head." "My idea 
of perfect society," says "Lothair," "is being married, as 
I propose, and paying visits to Brentham ; " or, as Disraeli 
varies the theme in the same novel, " I am fond of society 
that pleases me, that is accomplished and natural and in- 
genious ; otherwise I prefer being alone." Home, he thought, 
should be the centre of society, and a homeless society was 
not one at all. It is very noticeable, in comparing present 
with past fiction, how the English sense of home and flicker 
of the fireside, which used to warm every page, has receded 
out of view before the motor-speed and nervous restlessness of 
the age. His home-fondness was touchingly displayed after 
the death of his wife by his reply to a friend, who asked if he 



SOCIETY 285 

were driving home — a reply accompanied by tears ; " Home ! 
I have no home nowr Nor did any great man ever reserve 
the sanctities of the hearth more completely from a prying 
public. The purity of his home affections was one of Mr. 
Gladstone's notes of eulogy in the funeral oration that he 
delivered in the House to which Disraeli had been proudly 
devoted for forty-five long years. There are scores of sayings 
and episodes in his books, from Vivian Grey downwards, 
regarding the home affections ; many charming touches, too, 
in his letters to his sister. But I content myself with one, 
from Venetia — 

"... After all, we have no friends that we can depend 
upon in this life but our parents. . . . All other intimacies, 
however ardent, are liable to cool ; all other confidence, how- 
ever limited, to be violated. In the phantasmagoria of life, 
the friend with whom we have cultivated mutual trust for 
years is often suddenly or gradually estranged from us, or 
becomes, from painful yet irresistible circumstances, even our 
deadliest foe. As for women . . . the mistresses of our 
hearts, who has not learnt that the links of passion are fragile 
as they are glittering "i . . . Where is the enamoured face that 
smiled upon our early love, and was to shed tears over our 
grave ? . . . No wonder we grow callous, for how few have the 
opportunity of returning to the hearth which they quitted in 
levity or thoughtless weariness, yet which alone is faithful to 
them ; whose sweet affections require not the stimulus of 
prosperity or fame, the lure of accomplishments or the tribute 
of flattery, but which are constant to us in distress, and console 
us even in disgrace ! " 

I ought, perhaps, to add a word of Disraeli's ideas on love 
and marriage. No one set more store by, or laid more store 
on, the deciding influence of woman on man's career. No 
one recognised more heartily a woman's instinctive superiority 
to logic. How good is the humour in that dressing-room 
scene of the 'seventies in Lothair : — 

"... The gentlemen of the smoking-room have it not all 
their own way quite as much as they think If, indeed, a new 
school of Athens were to be pictured, the sages and the 
students might be represented in exquisite dressing-gowns, 



286 DISRAELI 

with slippers rarer than the lost one of Cinderella, and 
brandishing beautiful brushes over tresses still more fair. 
Then is the time when characters are never more finely drawn, 
or difficult social questions more accurately solved ; knowledge 
without reasoning, and truth without logic — the triumph of in- 
tuition! But we must not profane the mysteries of Bona Dea." 
To women, moreover, he, like " Coningsby," " instinctively 
bowed as to beings set apart for reverence and delicate treat- 
ment," but disillusions chequered his experience. In maturity 
he could undoubtedly " conceive that there were any other 
women in the world than fair Geraldines and Countesses of 
Pembroke." While Lord Randolph Churchill was still alive, 
a young man — now an eminent Liberal statesman, and then 
in the thick of a passionate courtship — poured out his heart to 
him as they walked home together from the House. Lord 
Randolph reminded him of what Disraeli had once observed 
to himself, that two of the great elements in life were passion 
and power ; that in youth the first prevailed, but that, as years 
proceeded, the last proved incomparable. He once said in 
his early youth that most of the distinguished men of his 
acquaintance who had married " for love " bullied or maltreated 
their wives ; and he also remarked at an early period that the 
man who wishes to rule mankind must not marry a too 
beautiful wife, who would divide his time and his will. Long 
afterwards, in the devotion of his home, Mrs. Disraeli would 
rally him by saying, " You know you married me for money, 
and I know that now, if you had to do it again, you would 
marry me for love." It will be recalled, too, that " Sidonia," 
though he had a heart, indulged his deeper emotions more 
towards causes than individuals. " In his organisation there 
was a peculiarity, perhaps a great deficiency." And yet 
Disraeli wrote : " We know not how it is, but love at first 
sight is a subject of constant ridicule, but somehow we suspect 
that it has more to do with the affairs of this world than the 
world is willing to own." — " Where we do not respect, we soon 
cease to love ; when we cease to love, virtue weeps and flies." 
I think that real love as the base of marriage is more genuinely, 
as well as romantically, portrayed in Venetia that in any of 
his works. In those pages it really moves us instead of moving 



SOCIETY 287 

before us, as it often does, even in the " love story " of 
Henrietta Temple. One of his early hobbies, too, was that 
men ought to marry early, as a source of strength and 
simplicity both to the affections and to the race. This is 
emphasised in Contarini Fleming. The passage is striking, 
and illustrates his deeper ideas on the whole subject : " To 
a man who is in love the thought of another woman is 
uninteresting, if not repulsive. Constancy is human nature. 
Instead of love being the occasion of all the misery of this 
world, as is sung by fantastic bards, / believe that the misery 
of this world is occasioned by there not being love enough. . . . 
Happiness is only to be found in a recurrence to the principles 
of human nature, and these will prompt very simple manners. 
For myself, I believe that permanent unions of the sexes 
should be early encouraged ; nor do I conceive that general 
happiness can ever flourish but in societies where it is the 
custom for all males to marry at eighteen. This custom, I am 
informed, is not unusual in the United States of America, 
and its consequence is a simplicity of manners and purity of 
conduct which Europeans cannot comprehend, but to which they 
must ultimately have recourse. Primeval barbarism and extreme 
civilisation must arrive at the same results. Men under these 
circumstances are actuated by their structure ; in the first 
instance instinctively, in the second philosophically. At 
present^ we are all in the various gradations of the inter- 
mediate state of corruption." 

At all events, his own compositions were conspicuously 
spotless ; and it may be said of him, as it was of Addison — so 
unlike otherwise — " No whiter page remains." 

Such, then, are some of Disraeli's main ideas on the 
outward forms and inward spirit of society. Fashionable 
" society " he played with, and he used — it amused him ; but 
he never cherished, rather he scorned it. Power he valued ; 
and fame — "the opinion of mankind after death" — for him 
meant power. There was once a certain rather fussy Radical 
member who had long been anxious to make his acquaintance. 
When Lothair appeared, he rushed up to Disraeli excitedly, 
with many apologies for the intrusion, and begged him to 
' It was written 1830-31. 



288 DISRAELI 

receive the assurance of his daughter's intense admiration for 
that work. " Thank you ever so much," returned Disraeli, 
" and this is fame I " 

When the gorgeous trinket was in his grasp, and he was 
at the zenith of his eminence, I have already recorded an 
impressive instance. I may contrast with this another picture, 
also of a fact already chronicled in the interesting recollections 
of a young associate of his old age. It will bear repetition. 
The scene was Hughenden in late autumn, the time, after 
Lady Beaconsfield's death. He sat in reverie before the fire, 
watching the flickering embers. " Dreams, dreams, dreams," 
he murmured, as the wreaths of smoke and the sparks of flame 
went upwards. He was thinking of his favourite Sheridans, 
by whose own fireside, and basking in whose sunshine of wit 
and beauty, so many of his happiest evenings had been spent 
forty years agone. And perhaps, also, he was thinking of that 
charming daughter of Lord Lyndhurst, whose pet name tallied 
with his own sister's ; and possibly, too, of that little Frances 
Braham, whom he had known in girlhood, and whom, after 
she, too, had carved a career, he still knew and admired as 
Frances, Lady Waldegrave. 

Yet one more dissolving view — 

The scene shifts again to London and a Foreign Office 
reception, with its gaping throng. It was the last function that 
Lady Beaconsfield, frail with age and bent with rheumatism, 
was able to attend. Step by step, all the way down that long 
staircase, he himself planted her feet and tenderly supported 
her feeble frame, till, when she reached the end, he presented 
to her a youth of promise, since a member of ministries, 
who will still remember it. 

Yes, it was companionship, not " society," that was precious 
to him. And trial proves friendship. 

" * Since I last met you, I heard you had seen much and 
suffered much.' — 'And that makes the kind thoughts of friends 
more precious.' — ' You have, however, a great many things 
which ought to make you happy.' — ' I do not deserve to be 
happy, for I have made so many mistakes. . . .' — ' Take a 
brighter and a nobler view of your life. . . . Feel rather that 
you have been tried and not found wanting.' " 




DISRAELI IN 1852 
After a painting by Sir frauds Grant, P.R.A. 



CHAPTER IX 
LITERATURE 

Wit, Humour, Romance 

WHATEVER Disraeli wrote was always literature, 
and never lecture. He was a born man of letters, 
and Dickens once lamented that politics had so 
long and often deprived fiction of a master. 
Disraeli is renowned for his wit ; but he is not so 
generally famed for two qualities in which he excelled, 
though with limitations — his subtle sense of humour and his 
fine feeling for the picturesque and romantic. 

Like his own " Sidonia," Disraeli " said many things that 
were strange, yet they instantly appeared to be true ; " like 
his own " Pinto," he " had the art of viewing common things 
in a fanciful light." I shall notice both these character- 
istics. He believed in the force of phrases as a pollen, so to 
speak, of ideas wafted through the air ; and he believed in 
the perpetual miracles of existence. His favourite English 
authors were the romantics of Queen Elizabeth and the wits 
of Queen Anne and the Georges. 

It was once said that wit is a point, but humour a straight 
line. This epigram is inadequate. Wit is no rhum^ of 
humour ; the two qualities differ in kind. Wit is a depart- 
ment of style ; and style is gesture, accent, expression. 
Wit is the faculty of combining the unlike, by the language 
of illustration, suggestion, and surprise. It sums up characters, 
things, and ideas. Like misery, " it yokes strange bedfellows," 
but with the link of words alone. It is best when intellectually 
true, but its requisite is fancy, and its domain expression. 
Humour, on the other hand, is an exercise of perceptive 
sympathy ; it is the faculty of discerning the incongruous, 
especially of human nature, in the visible alone ; it " looks on 
u 289 +- 



290 DISRAELI 

this picture and on that ; " it is most excellent when ethically 
sound, but its essence is insight, and its sphere, situation. 

No one ever heard of a witty picture, or a humorous 
epigram. We laugh at humour, whereas at wit we smile. 
Wit is, as it were, Yorick with cap and bells ; but humour 
unmasks him with a moral. Popular proverbs are the wit of 
the people ; what the crowd laughs at is its humour, and its 
humour varies in different countries ; but the standard of wit 
is the same in all civilisations. To define wit and humour 
would require both qualities, but, if I were to try my hand, I 
would venture to call wit, mirth turned philosopher — humour, 
philosophy at play. 

Disraeli's wit is at root arabesque. Its filagree flourishes, 
like the ornaments of the Alhambra, are supported by solid 
if slender pillars. It is fanciful grace sustained by a poised 
strength ; but it is also tempered by the cheery, if sententious, 
cynicism of the eighteenth century, in which he had steeped 
himself from childhood. Its source was racial ; but its form 
and colour were much influenced by Pope, Swift, and Voltaire. 
He was " a master of sentences." He delighted to condense 
thought, as it were, in civilised proverbs, and at the same 
time to let his terse fancy ^ embellish it with subtle and airy 
flourishes. His paradoxes are almost always thought in a 
nutshell, and never obscure nonsense in a clever frame. Of 
his directer wit, a good instance is to be found in his repartee 
to the crowd at his early Marylebone election : " On what do 
you stand .? " " My head!' Or his remark on the member 
who solemnly assured the House that he "took " his " stand" 
on " progress." " It occurred to me that progress was a 
somewhat slippery thing to take one's stand on." When the 
late Mr. Beresford Hope's rather turgid remark on the " golden 
image set up on the sands of Arabia " provoked Disraeli's 
famous phrase, its accompaniment was equally good. He 
said that there was " a certain prudery " about the honourable 
member's eloquence which never failed to fascinate.^ The 

' This quality is noticeable in his descriptions : Jerusalem at noon — " A 
city of stone in a land of iron with a sky of brass." Seville — " Figaro in 
every street, Rosina on every balcony." Cf. p. 304. 

2 It vi'ill be recalled that in opposing the Burials Bill, which he treated 



LITERATURE 291 

great Catholic lady who received her guests "with extreme- 
unction " reminds one of Horace Walpole. 

Wit, of whatever class, is, roughly speaking, twofold in 
degree — lightning wit and wit lambent — the wit that strikes 
sharply, and the pleasantry that shines around its object. In 
the first Disraeli excelled. Like his own Monsignor, he 
"sparkles with anecdote and blazes with repartee." His 
pages bristle with good things ; it is hard to choose. Every 
one remembers his political retorts and his literary aphorisms. 
" One whom I will not say that I respect, but rather that I 
regard." Another, " Who has learned much, but has still to 
learn that petulance is not sarcasm, nor insolence invective." 
The " conjuror who advances to the edge of the platform, and 
for hours draws yards of red tape from his mouth." One 
quotation against Peel — " Always ready with his Virgil " 
— that of the Horatian " Vectabor tunc humeris ; " and " Is 
England to be governed by Popkins' plan .? " " Batavian 
Grace," " Superior Person," and the like. Then there are the 
drunken recruits " full of spirit ; " the hansom, the " gondola 
of London ; " the critics, " the men who have failed ; " ^ 
Tadpole's, " Tory men and Whig measures ; " and Rigby's, 
" little words in great capitals " — these are household words. 
" Our young Queen, and our old institutions." There are 
Diplomatists, " the Hebrews of politics ; " St. James's Square, 
" the Faubourg St Germain of London ; " the " bad politician " 
of the 'thirties, who " like a bad shilling has worn off his edge 
by his very restlessness," and the enlightened Whig minister 
" almost eructating with the plenary inspiration of the spirit of 
the age ; " the men of the 'seventies who " played with billiard- 
balls games that were not billiards," and the lady of the 
'forties who " sacrificed even her lovers to her friends ; " stolid 
bores, our " Social Polyphemi ; " books, " the curse of the 
human race ; " of Austria, " two things made her a nation, she 

with respect, Disraeli, after expounding the parish rights in the churchyard, 
said, " I must confess that, were I a Dissenter contemplating burial, I 
should do so with feelings of the utmost satisfaction." 

' Cf. The Infernal Marriage — "Are there any critics in Hell?" 
" Myriads," rejoined the ex-King of Lydia. There is a kindred remark 
in one of Landor's Dialogues. 



292 DISRAELI 

was German and she was a Catholic, and now she is neither ; " 
of the Reform Bill, " It gave to Manchester a bishop and to 
Birmingham a dandy." And, less familiar, there is "Lord 
Squib's " definition of money value, " very dear ; " " Count 
Mirabel's " pleasantry, " coffee and confidence ; " " Essper 
George's," " Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I 
remember, and remembered more than I have seen ; " Venus, 
the " goddess of watering-places," and " Burlington " with 
" his old loves and new dances." There is the advice in The 
Young Duke, too, that " good fortune with good management, 
no country house and no children, is Aladdin's lamp," and 
that in Lothair to "go into the country for the first note of 
the nightingale and return to town for the first muffin bell." 
Then there is the " treatise on a subject in which everybody is 
interested, in a style no one understands ; " and there are the 
French actresses averring at supper, " No language makes 
you so thirsty as French ; " the English tradesmen who 
" console themselves for not getting their bills paid by inviting 
their customers to dinner ; " the Utilitarian, whose dogma was 
" Rules are general, feelings are general, and property should 
be general ; " and the definition of Liberty, " Do as others 
do, and never knock men down." There is Monmouth's 
" some woman has got hold of him and made him a Whig." 
There is the great political lady " who liked handsome 
people, even handsome women ; " and there is the unfortu- 
nate third-rate statesman, "who committed suicide from a 
want of imagination." Nor should I omit an unprinted mot. 
He defined a political " Deputation " as " a noun of multi- 
tude meaning many, but not signifying much." He was 
wont also to distinguish between "lawyers" and "legis- 
lators." A brace of very witty similes also claim a mention 
here — the comparison of the Parliament-built region of Harley 
Square to "a large family of plain children with Portland 
Place and Portman Square for their respectable parents ; " 
and that of the detached breakfast-tables at " Brentham," to 
" a cluster of Greek or Italian Republics, instead of a great 
metropolitan table, like a central government, absorbing all 
the genius and resources of society. Further, in the same 
category are the many metaphorical allusions and descriptions 



LITERATURE 293 

that ornament his speeches. The transference of the Bank 
currency crisis to the Neapolijtan procession and miracle 
of St. Januarius, both from a common cause, " congealed cir- 
culation ; " the picture of a maladroit reinforcement of oppo- 
sition as the exploit of the Turkish Admiral, summoned by the 
Sultan and blessed by the muftis, to retrieve the war, who yet 
steered his imposing fleet right into the enemy's port ; and 
the many illustrations from Cervantes, whose irony they share. 

Then, again, there are those terse figurative fancies which 
belong to the family of those first mentioned. The " Midland 
Sea " for the Mediterranean ; the " Western minster " for 
Westminster Abbey ; the " dark sex " for man ; the " free- 
trader in gossip " for the bad listener ; the " confused 
explanations and explained confusions," " Stateswoman " ^ 
and " Anecdotage," which, by-the-by, is a phrase of Isaac 
Disraeli derived by him in conversation from Rogers^ — all 
these and their kindred remind us that he was the son of an 
author portrayed by him as sauntering on his garden terrace 
meditating some happy phrase. 

Of the second — the wit of sustained sparkle rather than of 
sudden flashes — there are abundant examples. There is the 
passage in which " Lady Constance " in Tancred uncon- 
sciously ironises evolution in her criticism of a pamphlet, 
"The Revelations of Chaos." There is the lady's reasoning 
on the Gulf Stream theory, and " Lothair's " retort, " You 
believe in Gulf Stream to that extent — no skating." There 
is the pious regret that a boring authoress could not be 
married to the author of " The Letters of Junius " and " have 
done with it ; " and the pious hope that the Whigs would dis- 
franchise every town without a Peel statue. Then, again, 
there is " Herbert " in Venetia. 

" I doubt whether a man at fifty is the same material being 
that he is at five-and-twenty." 

" I wonder," said Lord Cadurcis, " if a creditor brought an 
action against you at fifty for goods sold and delivered at 
five-and-twenty, one could set up the want of identity as a 
plea in bar ; it would be a consolation to elderly gentlemen." 

1 From Swift, however. 

^ See his " Literary Character ; or. The History of Men of Genius." 



294 DISRAELI 

And to go back to an even earlier date — 

" What a pity, Miss Man vers, that the fashion has gone 
out of selling one's self to the devil ! . . . WAat a capital plan 
for younger brothers ! It is a kind of thing I have been trying 
to do all my life, and never could succeed in. I began at 
school with toasted cheese and a pitchfork." 

Or take the report of the debate in the House of Lords, 
" imposing, particularly if we take a part in it " — 

" Lord Exchamberlain thought the nation going on wrong, 
and he made a speech full of currency and constitution. 
Baron Deprivyseal seconded him with great effect, brief but 
bitter, satirical but sore. The Earl of Quarterday answered 
these, full of confidence in the nation and himself. When the 
debate was getting heavy. Lord Snap jumped up to give 
them something light. The Lords do not encourage wit, 
and so are obliged to put up with pertness. But Viscount 
Memoir was very statesmanlike, and spouted a sort of uni- 
versal history. Then there was Lord Ego, who vindicated his 
character, when nobody knew he had one, and explained his 
motives, because his auditors could not understand his acts." 

Or the comparison of the defeated Tories to the Saxons 
converted by Charlemagne — 

"... When the Emperor appeared, instead of conquering, 
he converted them. How were they converted .-* In bat- 
talions ; the old chronicler informs us they were converted 
in battalions, and baptised in platoons. It was utterly im- 
possible to bring these individuals from a state of reprobation 
to one of grace with sufficient celerity." 

In his speeches again there is the locus classicus of " the 
range of exhausted volcanoes" — "not a flame flickers on a 
single pallid crest." There are the wonderful political pictures 
of the "Calabrian Earthquake," the "ragged regiment that 
would not march through Coventry — that's flat ; " "Melbourne 
with his Reform Ministry and Ducrow still professing to ride on 
three sullen jackasses at once, but sprawling in the sawdust of 
the arena ; " of Peel as the profligate deserting his mistress and 
" sending down his valet to say, ' I will have no whining here,' " 
and a hundred others as good.^ Perhaps " Gamaliel, with all 

' One of the best is the invective against the collapse of Peel's " sliding 



LITERATURE 295 

the broad 'phylacteries on his forehead,' who 'comes down to tell 
us that he is not as other men are,' in reference to the ' Cabal' 
of 1859, should also be included. This is the 'parliamentary 
wit ' which Gladstone avowed unrivalled, and these, the vivid 
illustrations and metaphors, which he declared supreme in 
power of ' summing up characters and situations,' and fraught 
with the gift of ' appealing to the ear and the fancy.' " 

But there is also one from The Press of 1853 which is 
unknown, and claims a memorial. He is referring to the 
"Coalition" Ministry of 1853 — one, as he calls it, of "sus- 
pended opinions," and " resembling the ark into which crea- 
tures of the most opposite species walked two by two." It 
singles out a magnificent " over-educated mediocrity " among 
the strait sect of the " Peelites " — those who in Lady Clan- 
ricarde's epigram "were always putting themselves up to 
auction and buying themselves in again." It satirises 
that leader's protest that he was still a " Conservative," his 
announced " regret at the rupture of ancient ties," his " hope 
of some future reunion " — 

"... Amiable regret ! Honourable hope ! reminding us 
of those inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, who never 
devour their enemies — that would be paying them too great a 
compliment. They eat up only their own friends and rela- 
tions with an appetite proportioned to the love that they bear 
to them. And then they hasten to deck themselves in the 
feathers and trappings of those thus tenderly devoured in 
memorial of their regret at the ' rupture of ancient ties,' and 
their ' hope of some future reunion.' Do you feel quite safe 
with your new ally.? Do you not dread that the same 
affectionate tooth will some day be fastened upon your own 
shoulders ? ' " 

scale : " — " ... Of course the Whigs will be the chief mourners ; they 
cannot but weep for their innocent, though it was an abortion. But ours 
was a fine child. Who can forget how its nurse dandled and fondled it ? 
' What a charming babe ! Delicious little thing! So thriving ! Did you 
ever see such a beauty for its years ? ' And then the nurse, in a fit of 
patriotic frenzy, dashes its brains out, and comes down to give master and 
mistress an account of this terrible murder. The nurse too, a person of 
a very orderly demeanour, not given to drink, and never showing any 
emotion, except of late when kicking against protection," 



296 DISRAELI 

No wonder that Lord Granville — " un radical qui aime la 
bonne society " — described Disraeli as a " master " in the 
literary expression of " praise and blame." 

Last, though not least, should be mentioned Pinto's dictum 
on English — 

" It is an expressive language, but not difficult to master. 
Its range is limited. It consists, so far as I can observe, of 
four words, "nice," "jolly," "charming," and "bore;" and 
some grammarians add "fond." 

But none knew better than Disraeli that wit unrelieved is 
metallic. He had a very real perception of the ludicrous, and 
it was usually of a cast bordering on irony. In boyhood, 
Disraeli had been a great admirer of Montaigne, one of those 
authors, as he acknowledged, who "give a spring to the 
mind ; " but I cannot discern any influence of Montaigne's 
twinkling stillness on Disraeli's humour. The humour of 
Moli^re and of Sheridan, like that of Fielding, of Hogarth, 
and of Dickens, is direct and didactic, pointing to the follies 
and foibles of mankind. That, on the other hand, of Sterne, 
often of Thackeray, always of Heine, is indirect, inclined to 
be sentimental, and insinuating with all the machinery of 
playful surprise, the inconsistencies that enlist feeling or 
awaken thought. Swift's grim and creative humour, also, 
that " knocks off the tallest of heads " with a knotted 
bludgeon, wielded, however, by an imaginative fierceness, is 
of the same order ; and Swift had been early studied, was 
constantly quoted, and often imitated by Disraeli. The 
former is the broadsword of Coeur de Lion ; the latter, the 
scimitar of Saladin. It is of this latter species that Disraeli 
at his best must be reckoned. It stamps the whole of 
Popanilla, and much of Ixion, and The Infernal Marriage, 
and it interleaves both his wit, his argument, and his reflection 
throughout his novels, and, conspicuously in his triumph, 
Coningsby. 

Take " Lord Monmouth's " indignant lesson to the hero : 
" You go with your family, sir, like a gentleman. You are not 
to consider your opinions like a philosopher or a political adven- 
turer ; " or the motive for his bequest of his bust to " Rigby," 
" that he might perhaps wish to present it to another friend ; " 



LITERATURE 297 

or the same amiable nobleman's reason for esteeming besides 
appreciating " Sidonia " — he was so rich that he could not be 
bought. "A person or a thing that you perhaps could not 
buy, became," in his eyes, " invested with a kind of halo 
amounting almost to sanctity." " Lord Monmouth," indeed, 
and " Rigby " are Disraeli's masterpieces in this vein ; and 
" Mrs. Guy Flouncey," who, like " Becky," " was always sure of 
an ally the moment the gentlemen entered the drawing-room," 
follows at no very remote distance. Take " Waldershare's " 
account of England's ascendency : — 

" I must say it was a grand idea of our Kings making 
themselves sovereigns of the sea. The greatef" portion 
of this planet is water, so we at once became a first-rate 
power" 

Or the Homeric simplicity of the "Ansary" tribe, who 
believe London to be surrounded by sea, and inquire if the 
English dwell in ships, and are thus corrected by their 
would-be interpreter " Keferinis " — 

" The English live in ships only during six months of the 
year — principally when they go to India — the rest entirely at 
their country houses." 

Similarly, too, is the oblique sarcasm of " Tancred's " 
" Fakredeen " — 

"... We ought never to be surprised at anything that 
is done by the English, who are, after all, in a certain sense, 
savages. . . . Everything they require is imported from other 
countries. ... I have been assured at Beiroot that they do 
not grow even their own cotton ; but that I can hardly 
believe. Even their religion is an exotic, and, as they are 
indebted for that to Syria, it is not surprising they should 
import their education from Greece^ 

So, too, the piteous plight of the two honest servants — 
" Freeman and Trueman " — who complain to their master, in 
sight of Sinai, that they " do miss the 'ome-brewed ale and 
the family prayers ; " and the twice-raised wonder of the 
" Swells " as to what could drag one of their compeers 
to Palestine : " I believe Jeremiah somewhere mentions 
partridges." Nor should " St. Aldegonde's sigh " — " of a rebel- 
lious Titan"— at refusing to attend morning church at 



298 DISRAELI 

Brentham be forgotten : " Sunday in London is bad, but 
Sunday in the country is infernal ; " or his dainty wife's 
elaborate efforts that he should never be bored ; or the 
handsome Duke's ^ daily thanksgiving as he completed his 
"consummate toilette" that he had a family "worthy of 
him." 

" Rigby's " election, too — an excellent'example — well illus- 
trates the man to whom the country meant nothing in com- 
parison with the constituency, and to whom his titled patron's 
choice of him as executor was a " sublime truth." The whole 
scene is one of sustained humour. I will only cite " Rigby's " 
"grand peroration." 

"... He assured them that the eyes of the whole empire 
were on this particular election (cries of ' That's true ! ' on all 
sides), and England expected every man to do his duty. 
'And ivho do you expect to do yours ^ inquired a gentleman 
hokyw/ abotit that 'ere pe}zsio?tf' . . ." 

Then again, the episode of the Justice of the Peace in 
Venetza, and this from Endymion — 

"The chairman opened the proceedings, but was coldly 
received, though he spoke sensibly and at some length. He 
then introduced a gentleman who was absolutely an alderman 
to move a resolution, . . . The august position of the speaker 
atoned for his halting rhetoric ; and a city which had only 
just for the first time been invested with municipal privileges 
was hushed before a man who might in time even become a 
mayor." 

So, too, once more ; the description of " Armine's " expe- 
riences in the sponging-house, where the only literature was 
a Hebrew Bible. This is from Henrietta Temple. In Vivian 
Grey, his first novel, occurs the same whimsical humour that 
is to be found in his last, Endymion. The German statesman 
is pointing a ^<??^r;«^if-metaphysician, " stuffing ' kalte schale ' 
in a corner." 

"... The leaven of the idealists, a pupil of the celebrated 
Fichte. . . . The first principle of this school is to reject all 
expressions which incline in the slightest degree to substan- 
tiality. . . . Matter is his great enemy. My dear sir, observe 
^ The late Duke of Abercorn. 



LITERATURE 299 

how exquisitely Nature revenges herself on these capricious 
and fantastic children. Methinks that the best answer to 
the idealism of M, Fichte is to' see his pupil devouring kalte 
schakr 

In Lothair few will forget the hero's musings after the 
opera attendant's " Thank you, my lord " had attested the 
" overpowering honorarium." 

" ' He knows me,' thought Lothair ; but it was not so. 
When the British nation is at once grateful and enthusiastic, 
they always call you ' my lord.' " And in the same novel 
occurs the admirable humour of the scene at Muriel Towers, 
where the new French dance which is remembered and 
at last arranged by the impromptu good humour and clever- 
ness of " Theodora," is muddled by " Lord Carisbrook," who 
sums up his knowledge by " Newest thing in Paris," yet, 
notwithstanding, grins afterwards, quite self-satisfied, with his 
" I am glad I remembered it." 

There remains this light thrust at London architecture — 

" Shall we find refuge in a committee of taste, escape 
from the mediocrity of one to the mediocrity of many } , . . 
One suggestion might be made. No profession in England 
has done its best until it has furnished its victim. The pure 
administration of justice dates from the deposition of Maccles- 
field. . . . Even our boasted navy never achieved a victory 
until we shot an admiral. Suppose an architect were hanged I^^ 

And, finally, how admirable is the mock epic of the chef's 
dilemma at the opening of Tancred : "It is worthy of 
Boileau." 

" . . . ' What you learned from me,* says Papa Prevost, 
' came at least from a good school. It is something to have 
served under Napoleon,' he added, with the grand air of the 
imperial kitchen. ' Had it not been for Waterloo, I should 
have had the cross. Bt^^f the Bourbons and the Cooks of the 
Empire never could understand each other. They brought over 
an emigrant chef who did not comprehend the taste of the age. 
He wished to bring everything back to the time of the " ceil- 
de-bcetif" When Monsieur passed my soup of Austerlitz un- 
tasted, I knew the old family was doomed! . . . ' We must 
muster all our forces,' says the great Leander. 'There is a 



300 DISRAELI 

want not only of genius but of men in our art. The Cooks 
are like the civil engineers : since the middle class have taken 
to giving dinners, the demand exceeds the supply.' * There 
is Andrien,' said Papa Prevost ; ' you had some hopes of 
him.' ' He is too young. I took him to Hellingsley, and 
he lost his head on the third day. I entrusted the soufflh 
to him, and but for the most desperate personal exertions, 
all would have been lost. It was an affair of the Bridge 
of Areola' . . ." How Lilliput and Brobdingnag here 
combine ! I prefer this epic-fantasy to the lyric-fantasy of 
Thackeray's " Mirobolant." 

When Disraeli was out of office for the last term, he was 
walking with a leading member of the Government that had 
replaced his own. The statesman asked him how he thought 
the new Administration was getting on. " Pretty well," was 
his answer, " but I like the old-fashioned methods. The first 
year you do nothing ; the second year you talk of doing 
something ; the third year you do something — and succeed ; 
the fourth you do something — and fail ; the fifth year you 
spend in discussing whether it was a failure or not ; the sixth, 
you go to the country, who pronounce that it was^ 

Most of these are to some degree fanciful persiflage. Not 
so the following — a passage alluded to in a note already, and 
compared with another one from Heine. He is describing 
the Vintage Feast of Tabernacles, and the passage is the 
more remarkable because Disraeli's father instances this very 
festival as one of the obsolete and fanatical absurdities that 
unfit the Old Testament religion for its proper fulfilment by 
the New : — 

"Picture to yourself the child of Israel in the dingy 
suburb or the stolid quarter of some bleak Northern town, 
where there is never a sun that can at any rate ripen grapes ; 
yet he must celebrate the vintage of purple Palestine. . . . 
He rises in the morning, goes early to some Whitechapel 
market, purchases some willow boughs for which he has 
previously given a commission, and which are brought 
probably from one of the neighbouring rivers of Essex, 
hastens home, cleans out the yard of his miserable tene- 
ment, builds his bower, decks it even profusely with the 



LITERATURE 301 

finest flowers and fruit he can procure, and hangs its roof 
with variegated lamps. After the service of his synagogue, 
he sups late with his wife and children, as if he were in the 
pleasant villages of Galilee beneath its sweet and starry 
sky. . . . Perhaps as he is offering up the peculiar thanks- 
giving, . . . and his wife and children are joining in a pious 

* Hosanna ' — that is, ' Save us ' — a party of Anglo-Saxons, very 
respectable meuy ten-pounders, a little elevated, it may be, 
though certainly not in honour of the vintage, pass the house, 
and words like these are heard : '/ say, Buggins, what's 
that row f ' ' Oh, it's those cursed fews I We've a lot of them. 
It's one of their horrible feasts. The Lord Mayor ought to 
interfere. Hoivever, things are not so bad as they used to be. 
They used always to crucify little boys at their hullabaloos, but 
now they only eat sausages made of stijiking pork' ' To be 
stire' replies his companion, ^we all make progress! " 

And there are many pendants to this kind of pathetic 
humour in the sad vagaries, degraded ignorance, sordid joys 
and squalid sorrows of the operatives of " Wodgate " so 
sympathetically presented in Sybil: — 

"... 'They call me Tummas, but I ayn't got no second 
name ; but now I'm married I mean to take my wife's, for 
she has been baptised, and so has got two.' ' Yes, sir,' said 
the girl with the vacant face and the back like a grasshopper, 

* I be a reg'lar born Christian, and my mother afore me, and 
that's what few gals in the yard can say. Thomas will take 
to it himself when work is slack ; and he believes now in Our 
Lord and Saviour Pontius Pilate, who was crucified to save 
our sins, and in Moses, Goliath, and the rest of the apostles.' 
' Ah, me ! ' thought Morley, * and could not they spare 
one missionary from Tahiti for their fellow-countrymen at 
Wodgate?'" 

I must turn to the romantic and the picturesque in Disraeli's 
fiction. It is a large subject, but it need not necessitate a 
long treatment. 

The Brontes and Bulwer Lytton, in opposed spheres and 
with opposite material, are perhaps the only modern pure 
romantics in English fiction, before the romantic revival of 



302 DISRAELI 

the last twenty years or so had set in. In the early nine- 
teenth century Sir Walter Scott had headed another romantic 
revival. Miss Austen, however, — the miniaturist of realism — 
recalled fiction in her delicate manner to the beaten high-road 
of the eighteenth. Dickens, romantic by instinct, dwelt on the 
horrible and grotesque, and was more melodramatic than 
strictly romantic. Thackeray, sternly combating the infinite 
romance of his own nature, disclaimed a hero, and proved 
sentimental rather than romantic. Trollope, who photo- 
graphed feeling, abominated romance. George Eliot set out 
as a romantic, but she soon became gloriously whelmed in 
the vortex of scientific psychology. Others, who lack her 
imagination, have since followed in her track. We have 
been treated to analytic presentations of life, where some five 
persons engage in a mutual war of motive, and the very 
reasons for turning a door-handle are minutely involved in 
character. On the one hand, we had the English and French 
sensationalists elaborately unravelling mysteries ; on the 
other, the boudoir psychologists as elaborately anatomising 
moods. The great "naturalist" school supervened with its 
claims to scientise misery. Victor Hugo's romanticism was 
doomed by the merciless lancet of these literary surgeons. 
And throughout — even now, in the main, using "romance" 
more with regard to situation and expression than to events — 
the purely and simply heroic and adventurous has lost ground. 
Mind rather than action engrossed a great part of late nine- 
teenth-century fiction. 

With all faults, native and imposed, Disraeli proclaimed 
in his novels, in those which were political fairy-tales, as in 
those which were not, " adventures are to the adventurous ; " 
and this very phrase, too, occurs in his earliest satire. Contarini 
i%;«m^was originally styled "The Psychological Romance ;" 
Alroy is undoubtedly a romance historical ; The Young 
Duke, a romance of fashion ; Vivian Grey, one both of 
fashion and of ambition ; Venetia, of biography ; Henrietta 
Temple, of love ; and the rest, romances of the world's actors 
and action. 

But the extraordinary is merely the mantle of romanticism 
proper. Its method is everything. It is one that brings up 



LITERATURE 303 

before us at once the thing seen and the man seeing. It 
releases individuality from stereotyped shackles, it transfers 
interest from achievement to achievement's atmosphere, and 
it lends to landscape-painting the same element that it lends 
to character-drawing. 

The French separate their terms in distinguishing between 
real and feigned romance. The one they call romantique ; 
the other, romanesque. The really romantic in fiction is so 
to write as to import into the interest of the extraordinary 
the interest also of the author's temperament. Both the 
unusual subject and the imparted atmosphere are requisites. 
Rasselas is an unusual subject sententiously treated. It is 
parable, not romance. The Song of the Shirt is an, alas ! 
commonplace theme transfigured by sympathy. It is pathetic, 
not romantic. Sir Walter Scott, however, is romantic par 
excellence. We are sure that his background is unusual, and 
he stamps his individuality on the foreground. So, too, with 
his pictures of scenery. The writer's heart, rather than his 
head, pervades the perspective. The unromantic author is a 
showman, the romantic author an actor. The one fits character 
to persons ; the other from persons evolves character. The 
romantic reveals the wonderful to us by personal feeling. 
Ruskin once defined the picturesque as ** parasitical sublimity ;" 
Carlyle, too (as romantic and picturesque himself as Ruskin), 
denounces the faculty in which he excelled. But these 
thinkers failed, perhaps, to grasp that the root of the most 
beautiful impressions is association interwoven with memory, 
fancy, affection, even superstition, and the symbols of very 
names. Strip Venice of her climate, rob man of his memory, 
and where is the Venice that Ruskin adored ? Absolute 
beauty does exist, but rarely ; and we atone for imperfections 
by supplementing it with the endearments of outward accident. 
It is Nature's own method ; she garlands the rift of ruins 
with her greenery. The dead letter sleeps in literature as in 
life, of which literature ought to be the most sensitive mirror. 
Warmth is as indispensable as light ; and if fiction is to remain 
an art and not sink into a false science, the dry bones of hard 
facts must be made to live. By these means, too, the personal 
influence of great writers is most practically preserved. The 



304 DISRAELI 

wonderful in Nature can never be unnatural. It is only the 
affectation of it that is so — and that is usually accompanied 
by Mrs. Malaprop's " nice derangement of epitaphs." 

Now, so far as Disraeli's characters merely typify — and 
they do often — causes or movements, they are not romantic, 
however picturesque their garb. But so far as they do not, 
they are essentially romantic, and, where politicians in council 
are not concerned, this is constantly the case. 

Nothing can be more romantic, both in matter and manner, 
than the first introduction of " Sidonia." The " Princess 
Lucretia Colonna " in Coningsby, is romance incarnate. " Mor- 
ley," again, in Sybil is a most romantic figure. The whole 
episode of the " Baronis," in Tancred, is genuinely and 
strikingly romantic. So is the figure of " Theodora " in 
Lothair ; and all these occur in political novels. But in the 
non-political they abound. The early squibs are, perhaps, 
the only romantic skits in our language. Vivian Grey, too, 
is full of romance, and comprises the romantic drolleries of 
" Essper George," a modern Sancho. The whole of Venetia 
and all the action of Contarini are romantic ; so is his only 
and halting drama. Alar cos. Though at times, and from 
causes which I shall consider, there is in these early novels 
something of old Drury, and too much occasionally of the 
"Ha !-and-Pah ! " attitude, these are only blemishes in the 
costume ; the figures remain romantic. 

But it is, perhaps, in the short but charming descriptions 
of character and of scenery that Disraeli best showed his 
powers for the romantic and the picturesque. Take the 
character of " Fakredeen ; " take even the character of Sir 
Robert Peel in the Life of Lord George Bentinck. Take 
a hundred touches from his Home Letters, and those to 
his sister and family. He there says that "description is a 
bore," but he contrived in a few strokes to picture without 
describing. The sunset at Athens, " like the neck of a dove." 
His vignettes of the Parthenon, of the Lagoons, of Jerusalem, 
of Syria, both here and in Contarini, Tancred, and Lothair, 
are etched by a master-hand. 

Disraeli casts over his scenes the reflected glow of asso- 
ciative feeling. Peruse the beautiful rendering of "Marney 



LITERATURE 305 

Abbey" in Sybil (too long to quote). It is essentially a 
placid scene romantically described, with an individual feeling 
of soft regret and tender awe communicated to the dreamy 
landscape. It proves his delight in what he called "the 
sweet order of country life ; " his feeling for the " order of the 
peasantry . . . succeeded by a race of serfs who are called 
labourers and burn ricks." 

If we would note the contrast in unromantic writers of 
genius, we have only to re-read Jane Austen's description 
of Northanger Abbey, where, be it marked, in purposely 
deriding the false romance of a girl's sickly fancy, she must 
have desired to depict the demesne with every impressive 
attribute. 

And take this from Tancred: "Sometimes the land is 
cleared, and he finds himself by the homestead of a forest 
farm. . . . Still advancing the deer become rarer, and the 
road is formed by an avenue of chestnuts. . . . Persons are 
moving to and fro on the side-path of the road. Horsemen 
and carts seem returning from market ; women with empty 
baskets, and then the rare vision of a stage-coach. The 
postillion spurs his horses, cracks his whip, and dashes at full 
gallop into the town of Montacute, the capital of the forest. 
. . . Nor does this green domain terminate till it touches 
the vast and purple moors that divide the kingdoms of Great 
Britain." 

The effects of light play a leading part in Disraeli's 
landscapes. 

"... Nor is there, indeed, a sight " (of Mont Blanc in 
Contarini) " more lovely than to watch at decline of day the 
last embrace of the sun lingering on the rosy glaciers. Soon, 
too soon, the great luminary dies ; the warm peaks subside 
into purple, and then die into a ghostly white : but soon, and 
not too soon, the moon springs up from behind a mountain, 
flings over the lake a stream of light, and the sharp glaciers 
glitter like silver." 

This, too, of night in Venice — 

"... The music and the moon reign supreme. . . . Around 
on every side are palaces and temples rising from the waves 
which they shadow with their solemn form, their costly fronts 



3o6 DISRAELI 

rich with the spoils of kingdoms and softened with the magic 
of the midnight beam. The whole city, too, is poured forth 
for festival. The people lounge on the quays and cluster 
on the bridges ; the light barks skim along in crowds, just 
touching the surface of the water, while their bright prows 
of polished iron gleam in the moonshine and glitter in the 
rippling wave. Not a sound that is not graceful — the tinkle 
of guitars, the sighs of serenaders, and the responsive chorus 
of gondoliers. Now and then a laugh, light, joyous, and yet 
musical, bursts forth from some illuminated coffee-house, 
before which a buffo disports. . . ." 

Here, again, is an English summer morning from Sybil— 

" A bloom was spread over the morning . sky ; a soft 
golden light bathed with its fresh sheen the bosom of the 
valley, except where a delicate haze rather than a mist still 
partially lingered over the river, which yet occasionally gleamed 
and sparkled in the sunshine. A sort of shadowy lustre 
suffused the landscape, which, though distinct, was mitigated 
in all its features — the distant woods, the clumps of tall trees 
that rose about the old grey bridge, the cottage chimneys that 
sent their smoke into the blue, still air, amid their clustering 
orchards and gardens, flowers and herbs." 

There are many more such studies of light in home 
landscape, and not least in Lothair. And these are all ren- 
derings of scenery, and not scene-painting. In those abroad 
I might have included, too, the German Twilight from Vivian 
Grey, and the Grecian Sunset from Contarini, each dashed 
off with speed, yet each breathing a delicate and pensive 
peace. 

Another feature of his pencil is its fondness for and 
studied conversance with the forms, and even the sounds, of 
trees. Their " various voices " are introduced with effect into 
the storm in Vivian Grey. As years went on, this love of 
trees grew stronger. It is expressly mentioned as the hobby 
of his old age by Lady John Manners. There is not one 
of his novels where the varieties of wood and forest are not 
handled with distinctness and affectionate observation. " Con- 
tarini's " pet tree is oak. In Endymion is a park entirely of 
ilex. A glade at " Hurstley " is " bounded on each side with 



LITERATURE 307 

masses of yew, their dark green forms now studded with 
crimson berries." " Nigel Penruddock," the Tractarian, lolls 
" on the turf amid the old beeches and the juniper ; " and in 
the woods of a castle in Vivian Grey, "There was the elm 
with its rich branches bending down like clustering grapes ; 
there was the wide-spreading oak with its roots fantastically 
gnarled ; there was the ash with its smooth bark, and the 
silver beech, and the gracile birch, and the dark fir affording 
with its rough foliage a contrast to the trunks of its more 
beautiful companions, or shooting far above their branches 
with a spirit of freedom worthy of a rough child of the moun- 
tains," "Elegant" and "gracile" in this boyish sketch are 
Johnsonese, it is true ; but its romantic faculty is evident. 
He delighted, too, in Elizabethan gardens and Italian par- 
terres ; and he has drawn, both in outward and inward outline, 
suggestive and romantic presentments of Oxford, Cambridge, 
and Eton. 

And he could paint the marvellous to perfection. In 
Alroy, the magic ravine over which the hero must cross to 
win his talisman, rises before the view with the detail of 
reality : so does the ideal island of Popanilla. So — and they 
really belong to the marvellous— do the great country seats 
of " Montacute," " Hellingsley," " Beaumanoir," " Alhambra," 
"Chateau Desir," " Hainault," " Princewood," and "Muriel 
Towers." There are pictures, besides, of Seville, Cairo, and 
the Frankfort Fair. I could have subjoined the flaming 
castle in Sybil, the Derby in Endymion,^thQ bull-fight in 
Contarini, the desert in Alroy, the mountain storm in Vivian 
Grey. But I prefer his tranquil pictures, and perhaps one of 
the best is the " Cherbury " in Venetia. 

Another prominent characteristic of his romance was its 
fondness for London and the suburbs, the beauty of which, 
he always held, was only half appreciated. " Airy " Brompton 
and " merry " Kensington, with its young Queen " in a palace 
in a garden," touched his fancy ; and the Georgian pleasaunces 
of Roehampton, the antiquer abodes of Sheen dedicated to 
Swift, Temple, and Stella, and the deer-haunted woodland 
of Richmond Park still breathing of Anne, and Ormonde, 
Pope, and Thomson, and Walpole ; even, too, the Regency 



3o8 DISRAELI 

villas of Wimbledon. A few romantic strokes in Henrietta 
Temple thus etch the Park of London : — 

"At the end of a long sunny morning, . . . where can 
we see such beautiful women and gallant cavaliers, such fine 
horses and such brilliant equipages ? The scene, too, is 
worthy of such agreeable accessories ; the groves, the gleam- 
ing waters, and the triumphal arches. In the distance the 
misty heights of Surrey and the bowery glades of Kensing- 
ton." And readers of Lothair will remember with what 
romance he clothes an early June morning in Bond Street, 
and how, out of the prismatic hues of the fishmonger's shop, 
he weaves a garland of gay fancies ; nor will he forget St. 
James's Street — that " celebrated eminence " in Endymion. 
But it was more serious London that he admired most. The 
foreign crannies of Soho and the dingy length of Marylebone 
have both been explored by him. The Strand and the City 
purlieus, however, were his favourites. The quaint sites, the 
busy romances of the now grimy riverside, the historic names, 
the contrast of outside flurry with inside repose, the dwell- 
ing-houses of a past age rich with its art but now reserved 
for musty parchments or massive ledgers, fascinated him. 
" It is at Charing Cross," he avers, that " London becomes 
more interesting." This is how he limns one of finance's 
headquarters : — 

"In a long, dark, narrow, crooked street, which is still called 
a lane, and which runs from the south side of the street of 
the Lombards towards the river, there is one of these old 
houses of a century past. ... A pair of massy iron gates of 
elaborate workmanship separates the street from its spacious 
and airy courtyard, which is formed on either side by a wing 
of the mansion, itself a building of deep red brick, with a 
pediment and pilasters and copings of stone ; in the middle 
of the plot there is a small garden plot inclosing a fountain, 
and a very fine plane tree. The stillness, doubly effective after 
the tumult just quitted, the lulling voice of the water, the 
soothing aspect of the quivering foliage, the noble building 
and the cool and spacious quadrangle — the aspect even of 
those who enter, and frequently enter, the precincts, and who 
are generally young men gliding in and out earnest and full 



LITERATURE 309 

of thought — all contribute to give to this locality something 
of the classic repose of a college, instead of a place agitated 
with the most urgent interests of the current hour." 

London's motley vastness, too, and magnetism of attrac- 
tion were constantly his themes. "... It is a wonderful 
place, . , . this London ; a nation, not a city ; with a popula- 
tion greater than some kingdoms, and districts as different 
as if they were under different governments, and spoke 
different languages." And yet (of " Lothair "), " I have been 
living here six months, and my life has been passed in a 
park, two or three squares, and half a dozen streets ! " 

In Vivian Grey Disraeli whimsically observed that litera- 
ture was declining in the 'twenties through a wealth grown 
so luxurious as to rank it with " ottomans, bonbons, and pier- 
glasses." " Consols at a hundred were the origin of all book 
societies. There is nothing like a fall in consols to bring the 
blood of our good people of England into good order." 

Consols have now fallen, and maybe literature is reviving. 
Certain I am that, when its revival becomes pronounced, it 
will be through the invigoration of romance. The strange 
need not be sought in the remote. Wordsworth found it 
in "laughing daffodils," as truly as Byron in the Corsair. 
Unromantic matter, romantically treated, is more refreshing 
than romantic matter unquickened by personal feeling — by 

" Quod latet arcand non enarrabile fibr&P 

I have mentioned Disraeli's early tendency towards 
" Ha ! " and " Pah ! " For this there were several reasons 
besides his own temper and that of the time. 

When we speak of an "artificial" style we mean one 
unnatural to the author. Disraeli's style was perfectly 
natural to him, and it altered little. To impose another man's 
voice on our own is real artifice. How natively pathetic he 
could be, is shown by the scene in Vivian Grey, where the 
broken Cleveland sits and sobs amid the laughing children 
on his lonely bench in Kensington Gardens ; and how 
simply pleasing, by the encounter after long years between 
" Coningsby " and " Lady Theresa." He constantly alternates 
between the homely and the^outlandish. 



3IO DISRAELI 

In the few years preceding his grand tour, and, still more, 
the earlier Vivian Grey, he was at a phase in his development 
when he was only just beginning to realise the true bent of 
his powers, of which he had from the first been conscious, 
but which had hitherto more or less perplexed and bewildered 
him. In Alroy and Contarini his tone is one of savage force 
as yet unchastened and unmellowed. The wild Arab is in 
them. All the over-mastering dreams of his youth claimed 
materialisation ; his language went before his feelings, and 
strove to outrun them by vehement strokes of attitude. He 
thirsted for action, and yet drooped, restless and mortified. 
His circumstances were at war with his consuming ambi- 
tions. It was the discord of a peculiar fate and an unique 
organisation ; the ferment of a ripe spirit cooped by unripe 
experience, of an as yet untempered vigour. The genius, as 
in the old legend, shrank and dwindled in the bottle, but 
soared with gigantic stature when the stopper was released. 
One must not take the personal touches in Vivian, Alroy, and 
Contarini too literally. They are a blend of several factors 
and of various characters ; and he himself in his age regretted 
that the last had been the task of immaturity. But from 
the main emphasis and the prevailing moods of the three 
together, thus much one may gather. 

" Why, what is life" (this from Alroy), "for meditation 
mingles ever with my passion ? . . . Throw accidents to 
the dogs, and tear off the painted mask of false society ! 
Here am I, a hero ; with a mind that can devise all things, 
and a heart of superhuman daring, with youth, with vigour, 
with a glorious lineage . . . and I am — nothing." He was 
morbidly overdone, and he brooded and overdid his own 
morbidity. He had lived in "a private world and a public 
world," and the two were still at variance. " I was," he says 
extravagantly of a still earlier date, on the lips of " Contarini," 
*' in these days but a wild beast who thought himself a civilised 
human being ; " and yet " I felt the conviction that literary 
creation was necessary to my existence." — *' What vanity in 
all the empty bustle of common life ! It brings to me no 
gratification ; on the contrary, degrading annoyance. It 
develops all the lowering attributes of my nature." He 
was impatient, and yet he felt that " patience is a necessary 



LITERATURE 311 

ingredient of genius." " Nothing is more fatal than to be 
seduced into composition by the first flutter of the imagina- 
tion." He had aspired to be a poet, and a poet in a new 
style befitting modern life. The failure of the Revolutionary 
Epick disgusted him ; yet how could he have expected it to 
succeed } even if it had been sold at a farthing, as in the 
case of Mr. Home's experiment, it would never have attracted 
the public, for it was a long essay in stilted verse.^ He still 
aspired to influence and rule his fellow-men, but no path was 
clear. These moods were not to last. "Think of me as of 
some exotic bird which for a moment lost its way in thy 
cold heaven, but has now regained its course and wings its 
flight to a more brilliant earth, and a brighter sky." 

Moreover, he had for some years fostered the idea that 
verse was obsolete for poetry, and that rhyme was a solecism. 
Poetry should be the revelation of nature, and yet it had 
sought a modern vent in unnatural language.^ He attempted, 
therefore, to frame a language for poetical expression on a 
plan of his own, at once rhythmical and theatrical. And for 
all his confidence he was not wholly at ease. " I observed 
that I was the slave of custom, and never viewed any 
particular incident in relation to men in general. ... I 
deeply felt that there was a total want of nature in every- 
thing connected with me." — "When I look back on myself 
at this period, I have difficulty in conceiving a more unami- 
able character." And yet instinct revolted against artifici- 
ality. In defiance he would air his most extreme passions. 
To veil them was cant. " Never apologise for showing 
feeling. . . . Remember that when you do so, you apologise 
for truth." 

But if something of all this is applicable to 1829, still 
more is applicable to three years earlier, when Vivian Grey 

1 Of his verse I have not treated. No reader, however, of his fine 
sonnet on the Duke of Wellington, inscribed in the Stowe album, or of 
the wistful lyric addressed from the ^gean to his family in the Home 
Letters, or of the "Bignetta" rondel in the Young Duke, with its 
Heinesque close, or even of " Spring in the Apennines " from Veneiia, 
can doubt his genuine gift for poetry and metre. 

"^ " The art of poetry was to express natural feelings in unnatural 
language." — Contarini. 



312 DISRAELI 

— a miracle, whatever its defects, for one barely out of his 
nonage — was published ; ^ and much of the phase was only 
a remnant of its aggravated form in 1826. He had been 
seriously and mysteriously ill. He had small acquaintance 
with the great world, and continual conversance with his 
visions of it. He was in doubt, even in despair. His family 
was astonished, even annoyed. In Contarini, where his first 
novel figures as " Manstein," he has himself told us what he 
regretted in Vivian Grey. It was " written in a storm and 
without any reflection ; " its few images were all " probably 
copied from books." — " I thought of * Manstein ' as of a picture 
painted by a madman in the dark." — "I determined to re- 
educate myself." Years afterwards, when these fleeting 
phases had long passed, and had been succeeded by the 
higher and healthier moods following on the discovery and 
pursuit of his true destiny, he apologised for Vivian Grey 
as a boyish freak, affected because not written from observa- 
tion of the world, and he added that every one has a right 
to be conceited until he is successful. He showed his 
opinion of it by publishing Contarifti anonymously. In his 
old age, he excused its " inevitable reappearance " by once 
remarking that first efforts dealing with a big but unknown 
world must be exaggerated in style, and that "false taste 
accompanies exaggeration." Had he been grandiose without 
afterwards proving himself great, the blame would have been 
deserved. 

These are not the blemishes of his great political novels ; 
but there is in them also, with all their deep thought and 
striking insight, their absolute originality and stimulating 
suggestiveness, an air at times of the perfumer's shop rather 
than of the fresh air. Even " Sybil " cries out, " Oh ! the 
saints, 'tis a merry morn ! " " Coningsby " meets his lady- 
love at a ball, which " is a dispensation of almost super- 
natural ecstasy ; " and in Lothair itself we revert to " barbs " 
and " jennets," I think that these later defects were partly 
due to the reaction against the constraint, repression, and 

' In five volumes. Its original dedication ran : — 
" To the Best and Greatest of Men. 
He for whom it is intended will accept and appreciate the comphment^ 
Those for whom it is not intended will do the same." 



LITERATURE 313 

formality compelled by his political career. They were a 
reaction in form, but in no case were they artificial in 
substance. They meant something, and they pressed it 
home. Disraeli was always a fantastic, and the fantastic 
holds high rank in literature. It distinguishes Disraeli's 
pet, Cervantes, But fantasy is different far from frippery. 
Fantasy is the flicker of firelight, not the flare of gas. 

Again, it is always hard for originality to win a first 
hearing from the public. Browning once remarked in a letter 
that to fasten the attention of the British public some stroke 
of style is required. This is true. Browning is himself an 
example ; Carlyle, another ; for his early essays completely 
lack that compound of Jean Paul's German, and old Mrs. 
Carlyle's Scotch, out of which Carlylese was evolved. Ruskin 
is another instance. Disraeli in his correspondence is far more 
free and flowing than in his books. Of those books there is 
least trace of apparent affectation in Coningsby, which is the 
best political novel in any language. Reviewed as a whole, 
his novels are creative, and a marvellous medium for thought. 
Some bedizenment there is doubtless, and there are many 
gauds of fancy ; and parts of the characterisation may be 
said to be written in italics. It is true also that some of the 
persons are waxworks, but none of the characters are, and his 
movement of ideas, as well as his ideas of movement, display 
a flexibility rarely joined to such piercing penetration. Next 
to his three great political novels and in some respects above 
them, I would rank Venetia, which has never met with such 
widespread appreciation. Alroy and Contarini are psycholo- 
gical romances, exceptional of their kind. His method of 
composition was the same throughout his life. He pondered 
in the night what he penned in the morning. And of his 
early preparation he has left a memorial — 

"... I prepared myself for composition in a very different 
mood from that in which I had poured forth my fervid 
crudities in the Garden-house. Calm and collected, I con- 
structed characters on philosophical principles, and mused 
over a chain of action which should develop the system of 
our existence. All was art. I studied contrasts and group- 
ing, and metaphysical analysis was substituted for anatomical 
delineation. I was not satisfied that the conduct of my 



314 DISRAELI 

creatures should be influenced merely by the general prin- 
ciples of their being ;'^I resolved that they should be the very 
impersonations of the moods and passions of our mind. One 
was ill-regulated will ; ^ another offered the formation of a moral 
being ; ^ materialism sparkled in the wild gaiety and reckless 
caprice of one voluptuous girl, while spirit was vindicated in 
the deep devotion of a constant and enthusiastic heroine.^ 
Even the lighter temperaments were not forgotten. Frivolity 
smiled and shrugged her shoulders before us, and there was 
even a deep personification of cynic humour." 

He believed in the influence of the creative arts on 
creative authorship. He has pointed out how the Tuscan 
school of painting trains to the grandeur of simplicity, the 
Venetian to the gorgeousness of fancy. And of music he 
has written : " The greatest advantage that a writer can 
derive from it is that it teaches most exquisitely the art 
of development. It is in remarking the varying recurrence 
of a great composer to the same theme, that a poet may 
learn how to dwell upon the phases of a passion, — how to 
exhibit a mood of mind under all its alterations, and 
gradually to pour forth the full tide of feeling." But he 
thought that such influences were a prelude to creation, not 
to execution. " It is well to meditate upon a subject under 
the influence of music, but to execute we should be alone, 
and supported only by our essential and internal strength." 

As is familiar, he was fastidious even when he was florid. 
It is well known that he relieved his last illness by correcting 
the proofs of his last speeches for Hansard — "the Dunciad 
of Politics." " I will not," he said, " descend to history 
speaking bad grammar." 

About national literature he held views which sprang 
from his theories of race. He considered that modern 
Europe depended overmuch on ideas derived from Rome, 
Greece, and Palestine. "At the revival of letters we beheld 
the portentous spectacle of national poets communicating 
their inventions in an exotic form. . . . They sought variety 
in increased artifice of diction, and substituted the barbaric 
clash of rhyme for the melody of the lyre. ..." Spain, he 
thought, offered the best field for a national novel. 

' Vivian Grey. ' Contarini Fleming. ^ Venetia. 



LITERATURE 315 

" The outdoor life of the natives induces a variety of the 
most picturesque manners, while their semi-civilisation makes 
each district retain with barbarous jealousy its peculiar 
customs." 

For the critics he had a smile at the first as at the last. 
They " admired what had been written in haste and without 
premeditation, and generally disapproved of what had cost 
me much forethought and been executed with great care. . . . 
My perpetual efforts at being imaginative were highly repro- 
bated. ... I puzzled them, and no one offered a prediction 
as to my future career. ... I thought no more of criticism. 
The breath of man has never influenced me much, for I 
depend more upon myself than upon others. . . ." 

At " Reisenburg " in Vivian Grey were two great journals 
edited on opposite principles. In the one, every review was 
written by a personal enemy ; in the other by a personal 
friend. And there was a third by that "literary comet," 
" Von Chronicle," the historical novelist, who believed that in 
romance costume was superior to character. His novel of 
" Rienzi " terminated with the scene of the Coronation, 
because "after that, what is there in the career of Rienzi 
which would afford matter . . . .? All that afterwards occurs 
is a mere contest of passions and a development of character ; 
but where is a procession, or a triumph, or a marriage . . . ? 
Not a single name is given in the work for which he has not 
contemporary authority ; but what he is particularly proud 
of are his oaths. Nothing has cost him more trouble than 
the management of the swearing ; and the Romans, you 
know, are a most profane nation. . . . The ' 'sblood ' of the 
sixteenth century must not be confounded with the * zounds ' 
of the seventeenth. . . . The most amusing thing is to contrast 
this mode of writing works of fiction with the prevalent and 
fashionable mode of writing works of history. . . . Here we 
write novels like history and history like novels. All our 
facts are fancy, and all our imagination reality." 

Excellent fooling, this ! Through the long range of his 
writings Disraeli did more than any novelist of the nine- 
teenth century to impress on the ordinary mind not only the 
pleasures but the powers of the Imagination. 



CHAPTER X 
CAREER 

THE secrets of success, Disraeli has told us more than 
once, are knowledge of your capacities, constancy of 
purpose, and mastery of your subject. It is seldom 
that in one brain these qualities of grip, mental and 
moral, are fully combined ; and, rarer still, when they do 
reside together, is the addition of the third requisite named 
by him — patience. It, with the tact it bears, is as necessary 
for the servant as the master. 

"The magic of the character," he says of the courier in 
Contarini, " was his patience. This made him quicker and 
readier and more successful than all other men. He prepared 
everything, and anticipated wants of which we could not think." 
The preparation for career — apart from its entitling endow- 
ments — should be education ; but education, he held, even in 
its prescientific days, often started with a vital mistake. It 
proceeded on words, grammars, and systems. It should 
proceed on a knowledge of pre-disposition ; others should 
know a man before he is called upon to know himself. 
" What we want is to discover the character of a man at his 
birth, and fotmd his education upon his nature. . . . All is an 
affair of organisation. . , . Among men there are some points 
of similarity and sympathy. There are few alike ; there are 
some totally unlike the mass. . . . Until we know more of 
ourselves, of what use are our systems ? . . . We speculate 
upon the character of man ; we divide and we subdivide. 
We have our generals, our sages, our statesmen. There is 
not a modification of mind that is not mapped out in our 
great atlas of intelligence. We cannot be wrong, because we 
have mapped out the past ; and we are famous for discovering 

316 



CAREER 317 

the future when it has taken place. Napoleon is First Consul, 
and would found a dynasty. . . . But what use is the dis- 
covery, when the Consul is already tearing off his republican 
robe and snatching the imperial diadem ? And suppose, 
which has happened, and may and will happen again — suppose 
a being of a different organisation from Napoleon or Cromwell 
placed in the same situation — a being gifted with a combi- 
nation of intelligence hitherto unknown — where, then, is our 
moral philosophy ? How are we to speculate upon results 
which are to be produced by unknown causes ? . . . The 
whole system of moral philosophy is a delusion, fit only for 
the play of sophists in an age of physiological ignorance." 
So, too, he had reason to think of some physicians "who 
decide by precedents which have no resemblance, and never 
busy themselves about the idiosyncrasies of their patients." ^ 
"Until," he wrote again, "men are educated with reference 
to their nature, there will be no end of domestic fracas." He 
remembered his grandfather's misconstruction of his father's 
temperament, and his uncle's of his own. Even illness he 
considered " as much a part of necessary education as travel 
or study." And his constant idea, that national literature 
ought to be native and not imported, allied itself to his 
educational ideas also. "The duty of education is to give 
ideas. When our limited intelligence was confined to the 
literature of two dead languages, it was necessary to acquire 
them." . . . But now each nation has its literature. . . . 
Let education, then, be confined to the national literature, and 
we should soon perceive the beneficial effects upon the mind 
of the student. Study would then be a profitable delight. I 
pity the poor Gothic victim of the grammar and the lexicon. 
The Greeks, who were masters of composition, were ignorant 
of all languages but their own. They concentrated the genius 
of the study of expression upon one tongue. To this they owe 
that blended simplicity and strength of style, which the imitative 
Romans, with all their splendour, never attained. . . . The 
ancients invented their Governtnents according to their wants ; 
the moderns have adopted foreign policies, and then modelled 

^ Cf. Bolingbroke's " Compare the situations without comparing the 
characters." 



3i8 DISRAELI 

their conduct upon this borrowed regulation. This circumstance 
has occasioned our manners and customs to be so confused, 
absurd, and unphilosophical. What business had we, for 
instance, to adopt the Roman law — a law foreign to our 
manners, and consequently disadvantageous ? He who pro- 
foundly meditates upon the situation of modern Europe will 
also discover how productive of misery has been the senseless 
adoption of Oriental customs by Northern peoples. Whence 
came that divine right of kings which has deluged so many 
countries with blood ? — that pastoral and Syrian law of tithes, 
which may yet shake the foundations of so many ancient 
institutions ? " The spirit of this passage was ever present to 
his mind. He went even further. He has asserted that the 
mere fact of copying or assuming ideas deprives them of their 
native virtue, and that all that is second-hand loses the vigour 
and flavour of its originals in imitating them. 

Preparation must be succeeded, and, indeed, attended, by 
meditation. I shall return to this idea shortly, and consider 
it in his own instance. But there comes a juncture when 
action must rise from the chrysalis of thought which encloses it. 

"... You must renounce meditation. Action is now your 
part. Meditation is culture. It is well to think until a man 
has discovered his genius and developed his faculties, but 
then let him put his intelligence in motion. Act, act, act with- 
out ceasing, and you will no longer talk of the vanity of life." 

The perpetual thought of death he considered harmful. 
To live in present duty and energy was truer piety than to 
brood on the coming hour when no man can work ; and the 
very sense of existence is a great happiness, and leads to hope. 
"... If, in striking the balance of sensation, misery were 
found to predominate, no human being would endure the curse 
of existence. . . . " ^ He would surely have echoed that fine 
saying of Gladstone — "Indifference to the world is not love 
of God." He was infinitely sanguine in outlook, although 
extremely cautious in expedients. I may recall that when 
Coningshy has missed his fortune, Sidonia consoles him by a 
series of more disagreeable contingencies. 

Such, then, were for him the equipments of career. Of its 
' This idea was emphasised by Bohngbroke. 



CAREER 319 

arts in attaining what it designs to exercise for the good of 
others, much will have been gleaned from many citations as 
to tact and temper. There is one other maxim of worldly 
wisdom which is worth recording : " If you wish a man to be 
your friend, allow him to confute you." His idea of power 
was that it was " a divine trust," but it was also a cumulative 
fund. " The very exercise of power only teaches me that it 
may be wielded for a greater purpose," Mrs. Disraeli said, 
when her husband had, in his own words, " climbed to the top 
of the greasy pole at last," " You don't know my Dizzy, what 
great plans he has long matured for the good and greatness 
of England. But they have made him wait and drudge so 
long — and now time is against him." 

It is not here my province to track the details of his own 
career. This book deals with his ideas. But with the interest- 
ing psychology of his early temperament I mean to deal, for 
it concerns his ideas. 

I might, had his career been within my scope, have cleared 
some doubts, and explained many misunderstandings. I could 
have shown, as I have shown elsewhere, the real truth about 
the Peel letter, and the events of 1851-52. I should have 
pointed out the dividing lines in his campaign and the 
halting-places in his march, the Eastern tour, his marriage, 
his estrangement from Peel, the Crimean War, his steady 
progress in social improvements, his Reform Bills of 1859 
and 1867, the strong effect on his outlook of events of magni- 
tude, and the last act of the drama — his imperialism. I 
might also have explained the moot points connected with 
the years 1833, 1835, 1837, 1846, 185 1, and 1860.^ I might, 
perhaps, have been able to shed light on the delayed Malmes- 
bury despatches in 1859. Nor should I have shirked his 
mistakes, notably the motion of censure on Lord Palmerston. 
And I would have dwelt on the striking influences which his 
sister and his wife exercised over him. 

But one brief topic I shall skim before I finally trace 
something of his own peculiar development. 

* Hume's election support, the challenge of O'Connell, the cultivation 
of Chandos, the " Canning " episode, the surrender of " protection," and 
the delay in producing the Indian despatches, respectively. 



320 DISRAELI 

Much has been talked of his alien "aloofness." As for 
alien, Mazarin was in this sense an " alien," not to speak of 
the less worthy examples, Alberoni and Ripperda. In the 
eighteenth century a Scotch premier was in England an 
" alien." Augustus was partly, Napoleon wholly, an " alien." 
And what but "aliens" were Manin, Gambetta, Lasker, 
Midhat, and Emin ? Nobody understood his countrymen 
more shrewdly at once and sympathetically than Disraeli. 
His was no sham patriotism, and he loved John Bull fondly, 
even when he poked fun at him. Nor had any pondered 
more deeply the lessons which history imparts. There are, 
however, two grains of truth in this reproach. He did regard 
the world and its history as a fleeting show. He believed in 
recurring cycles. What is now old was once new ; what is 
new will one day be old. So long as individuals worked 
their best, what did it matter } One civilisation succeeds 
another, and the last state of a mighty nation is often worse 
than the first. "The whirligig of Time brings about his 
revenges." In this sense — the historical and philosophical 
sense — he might be called indifferentist. And again, he 
understood England, but it took long for his countrymen 
to understand Mm. When they came to do so, he met with 
that generosity which immense bravery and perseverance 
always eventually receive ; but, meanwhile, he had struggled 
against a jealous malice which is, perhaps, peculiar to politics. 
He had " educated " his followers, but suspicion and misunder- 
standing hampered his every step. During two spans of some 
six years each (without counting his early period) he had to 
play the losing game with an unruffled brow, an encouraging 
smile, and an unwearied resource, which included the transfor- 
mation of a party and foundation of a political magazine. He 
had to hearten the despairing, the recalcitrant, the slothful, 
and the sullen. He had to deplore the stupidity of missed 
opportunities ; ^ he had to humour the engrossers of office ; and, 
even, in the intervals of power, to bend his neck to the grind- 
stone of finance. " I am not," he once sarcastically rejoined, 
alluding to Sir Charles Wood opposite, "a born Chancellor 
of the Exchequer." His hour struck. At sixty-four he 
^ Notably in 1855. 



CAREER 321 

began to govern England on lines planned and with projects 
pondered full thirty years earlier ; and even then he had 
to confront anonymous endeavours to sap his leadership 
from quarters which should have disarmed suspicion. His 
own mind was impartial in the extreme. The same " aloof- 
ness " which he is alleged to have displayed to British affairs, 
he certainly displayed in his books with regard to Eastern 
emirs, who talk with the aspirations of the West. " Alroy " 
himself is very European, and never more so than when he 
disdains the isolating fanaticism of " Jabaster." 

Much, too, has been prattled about his " audacity," and I 
notice that the hackneyed quotation about " L'audace " is 
usually in these diatribes ascribed to Danton, and not to its 
author, Beaumarchais. Many of these "audacities" are now 
recognised as wisdom ; but it has been after-wisdom that has 
recognised it ; though Disraeli was usually Prometheus. 

" There are times," he said in one of his early novels, 
" when I am influenced by a species of what I may term happy 
audacity, for it is a mixture of recklessness and self-confidence, 
which has a very felicitous effect upon the animal spirits. At 
these moments I never calculate consequences, yet everything 
seems to go right. I feel in good fortune ; the ludicrous side 
of everything occurs to me ; I think of nothing but grotesque 
images, I astonish people by bursting into laughter apparently 
without a cause. . . ." 

Disraeli was naturally sensitive, but he studied self-repres- 
sion. No one was more cut to the quick by contumely or 
impertinence ; no one was more determined to hide the wound. 
" If," once observed Jowett, " Dizzy were on the brink of the 
bottomless pit, and each moment about to fall into it, his look 
would never betray the fact ; such is his pluck and power of 
countenance." As he bore himself towards provocation, he 
bore himself towards pain. The last great speech he ever 
made was delivered with youthful jauntiness, yet he was 
forced to take a drug in order to deliver it. " One must 
meet death boldly," he exclaimed to an intimate friend, 
after he had read the denial of the doctors' assurance in 
their faces. 

Disraeli's intellectual shortcomings are those, it seems to 

Y 



32 2 DISRAELI 

me, belonging to an intense, as opposed to a diffused imagi- 
nation. His mind shed both heat and light, but both the 
light and the heat were over-concentrated. The same applies, 
perhaps, to his will, and to his character also. Everything in 
him was focussed. His ideas possessed him, and he chafed, 
like a sculptor at work, to embody them. Outside the forms 
of those ideas he could not penetrate. In relation to them, 
he judged all junctures and all endeavours. It is this averse- 
ness to the abstract that pervades his every outlook. He 
could not conceive of ideas as unmaterialised or disembodied. 
They had been the companions of his boyish solitude. 

"... The clustering of their beauty seemed an evidence 
of poetic power : the management of these bright guests was 
an art of which I was ignorant. I received them all, and found 
myself often writing only that they might be accommodated." 

As a child, his ruling mood was that of reverie. He had 
steeped himself in his father's library, and his extraordinary 
imagination played upon the poets, the philosophers, and, 
above all, the historians. Dim dreams from the vast pro- 
cession of the centuries took shape and became flesh. He 
beheld the great men and movements marching before him. 
Incarnate presences peopled his loneliness, and called to him 
with their voices — 

" The votary of a false idea, I linger in this shadowy life 
and feed on silent images which no eye but mine can gaze 
upon, till at length they are invested with the terrible circum- 
stances of life, and breathe, and act, and form a stirring world 
of fate, beauty, time, death, and glory. And then, from out 
this dazzling wilderness of deeds, I wander forth and wake 
. . . horrible ! horrible ! " " Often in reverie had I been an 
Alberoni, a Ripperda, a Richelieu. . . ." "I sat in moody 
silence, revolving in reverie without the labour of thought. . . ." 

He felt that he was not as others. He found that though 
at once proud and gentle, as a boy, his family were sometimes 
eyed askance as foreigners. He wished to frequent a public 
school ; it was deemed unadvisable. The harder side of his 
nature began to assert itself. He would triumph over all, 
hew down every obstacle. His father suggested the Uni- 
versity. He rejected the offer. Why waste his time in words 



CAREER 323 

that might prove a school for deeds ? " A miserable lot is 
mine to feel everything and be nothing." He was destined, 
appointed, reserved. As he grew older these convictions 
deepened. "Am I a man, and a man of strong passions and 
deep thoughts ? And shall I, like a vile beggar, upon my 
knees crave the rich heritage that is my own by right ? " But 
how? The very thought bewildered, oppressed, and em- 
bittered him. " Everything is mysterious, though I have 
always been taught the reverse." In a dangerous moment 
he began to lay it down as a principle "that all considera- 
tions must yield to the gratification of my ambition." Life 
without power, and power that he felt deserved, was in- 
tolerable. His father remonstrated. He warned him against 
the fatal tyranny of the imagination. " I think," he said, 
"you have talents indeed for anything . . . that a rational 
being can desire to attain ; but you sadly lack judgment." 
The boy replied, " I wish, sir, to influence men. ... I am 
impressed with a most earnest and determined resolution to 
become a practical man. You must not judge of me by my 
boyish career. The very feelings that made me revolt at the 
discipline of schools will insure my subordination in the world* 
I took no interest in their petty pursuits, and their minute 
legislation interfered with my extended views." In answer, 
he was admonished that a nature so " headstrong and impru- 
dent" would lead to situations ridiculous and even dangerous ; 
that his lack of regulated balance would warp his excellent 
instincts. The boy persisted that, if not by deeds yet by 
words, he would sway his fellows. "Mix in society," re- 
joined his father, with a shrug of the shoulders, "and I will 
answer that you lose your poetic feeling ; for in you, as in the 
great majority, it is not a creative faculty, originating in a 
peculiar organisation, but simply the consequence of a nervous 
susceptibility that is common to all." The youth continued 
to fret, and brood, and calculate. He felt method within him 
as well as frenzy. In his old age he was once driving past 
Bradenham with a lady who knew how happy his home rela- 
tions had been. "Ah ! " he sighed, " there is where I passed 
my miserable youth."— " Miserable!" she replied ; "impossible! 
Surely you were happy there."—" Not then. I was devoured 



324 DISRAELI 

by an irresistible ambition which I could not gratify." ^ It 
reminds me of that passage in Swift where the great dean 
ascribes the first pricks of ambition, in the career which the 
inequalities of his situation had urged, to the rage and morti- 
fication he experienced as a boy in failing to land a big fish. 
He grew distracted ; for a time he had to inhabit a darkened 
room. With the Austins he travelled in Germany and Italy. 
The result was Vivian Gi'ey — the " Don Juan " of politics. 

The circumstances and results of the book I have touched 
in the preceding chapter. Disraeli grew ashamed of its 
fashionable success. The world was not merely his oyster. 
He would elevate and benefit by it. He mixed in society, but 
it neither raised his spirits nor slaked his thirst, although it 
did help him to see his measure and stature among mankind. 
That commerce with the world is the best cure for misjudged 
ambition he pressed in his fine address to youth at the 
Manchester Athenaeum ; but ambition itself he regarded as 
elevating for man. At the crisis, however, that we have 
reached, his ambitions were still unsettled. He began to be 
soured and sceptical both of himself, of mankind, and of God, 
His spiritual fibre was shaken. His sister, with talents nearly 
equal to his, and faith and charity superior, came to his 
rescue. She healed his wounds ; she ennobled his standard ; 
she comforted him with her entire belief in his great future. 
She restored him to his higher self. 

Once more the shadow of ill health fell across the young 
Disraeli's footsteps ; this time a very critical malady — a com- 
plete nervous breakdown. He " fainted as he dressed." He 
even had convulsions. He was overwhelmed by strange noises 
in his head. "... The falls of Niagara could not overpower 
the infernal roaring that I alone heard." ^ Travel was pre- 
scribed. He departed for two years from Europe, and mended. 

* This is told in one of Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff's " Diaries." 
2 It is noticeable, as regards the habitual recurrence of his phrases, 
that in his early letters he always nicknames this first illness "the 
enemy," the same as he used to his physicians in his last. His early ill 
health quickened his continual sympathy with suffering. No better 
instance could be read than his speech at the opening of the Hospital for 
Consumption, with his beautiful references to Jenny Lind, as song 
ministering to sorrow. 



CAREER 325 

Even at this time, with the spectres of doubt and illness 
athwart his way, he could not stifle the secret assurance of 
his destiny. I have seen a letter to a friend, who had shared 
a financial misadventure, in which he deplores his condition, 
but declares that " something within me whispers that one day 
I shall be famous. Be assured, if ever that time comes, you 
will be the first that I shall remember." 

He returned, found his place, his mission, and his ideals. 
But still his discreet family opposed themselves to his 
entrance into public life. It was incredible, impossible, 
absurd. " So much for the maddest of mad acts, as my uncle 
said," he wrote to his sister on his first return to Parliament. 

Every one remembers the story of his meeting with Lord 
Melbourne, and his answer, true or not, as to what the premier 
could " do for him." " I wish to be Prime Minister." At any 
rate, Mrs. Austin, in extreme old age, recalled a party at her 
house about this period, when the young Disraeli explained 
his plans for England, " when I am Prime Minister," amid 
laughter and surprise. "You will see," he said, bringing his 
fist down on the mantelpiece, "I shall be Prime Minister." 
He felt, as he wrote to his sister after attending a great 
debate, that " he could floor them all." His confidence in 
himself, like his sister's in him, was colossal. 

So I read his earliest years from his earliest books. 
Thenceforward he marched from strength to strength, and 
he employed power when he obtained it conscientiously 
according to his best lights for the improvement of the people 
and the glory of the Empire. 

And yet how strange it is, that at the annual gatherings on 
his death-day, celebrated by the romance of his memory and his 
flower, the successors who, faltering from his footsteps, honour 
the good will of his enduring popularity, have never breathed 
his name ! I can see him smile in the shades ; for he found 
his party a quagmire, and he left it a township. At all times 
he toiled hard and long, though sometimes by fits and starts ; 
and a study was reserved ready for his visits at Bradenham. 
Although in his later years he would sometimes play at 
indolence, it was really against the grain. The occasional 
air of listlessness which society remarked in his latter 



326 DISRAELI 

days was the attendant of failing health, and only filmed an 
activity that neither age nor illness could overcome. In the 
long recess of 1848 he was working over ten hours a day, 
rising at five and retiring at nine. In the long session of 
1852 he was working considerably more. To the last he read 
the classics while he dined. As he lay dying he corrected 
his speeches. He never relaxed that infinite interest in 
everything and everybody of purport and meaning, which 
the French well style " la grande curiosite." 

When he died, amid national mourning, the late Lord 
Salisbury, after singling out his unquenchable zeal for the 
glory of Britain, lasting to a period when "the gratification 
of every possible desire negatived the presumption of any 
inferior motive," adverted to his " patience, hi^ gentleness, his 
unswerving and unselfish loyalty to his colleagues and fellow- 
labourers."y/lndisputably his moral character was high. With- 
out question he, like Gladstone, raised the tone of parliamen- 
tary life from that of the days when politics were merely a 
squabble for place and a toss-up as to "whether England 
should be ruled by Tory nobles or by Whig." His tone may 
not always have chimed with certain forms or formulas of 
earnestness, but he acted up to his own high standard. "It 
was impossible," said the late Lord Granville, " to deny that 
Lord Beaconsfield had played a great part in British History. 
No one could deny his rare and splendid gifts and his force of 
character." Character will always appeal to England. " But," 
pursued the orator, after noticing his tolerance and forbearance, 
" he undoubtedly possessed the power of appealing to the 
imagination, not only of his countrymen, but of foreigners,^ and 
that power is not destroyed by death."^ 

My book opened with Personality, Ideas, and Imagination. 
With Imagination, Ideas, and Personality it shall close. They 
can turn and change the semblances of material "facts," for 
they abide behind the veil of time and of existence. 

* At Berlin Bismarck said of him, " Disraeli is England." His 
translated works were, and I believe are, read widely abroad. 



INDEX 



Addington, 82 

Addison, 286 

Afghanistan, 215 et ssq, and n. I 

Ali Pacha, 271 

America, on primitive and Puritans, 
250; "landed" democracy, 67, 91, 
n. I, 246, 251 ; Canadian "retalia- 
tion" on, 136, 11, I ; Church, 148- 
152, 204, 244 ; Disraeli's discern- 
ment regarding, 48, 234, 246-247 ; 
civil war would transform colonial 
into imperial spirit, 247-250 ; Anglo- 
phobia, his wise distinctions as to, 
250-253 ; Fenianism, insight regard- 
ing, 253-256 ; the negro difficulty, 
251 ; manners, 283 ; Disraeli on 
marriage in, 287 ; manners, 283 

Antonelh, 175 

Austen, Jane, 302, 305 

Austin, Mrs., 10, 23, 31, 270 

Austria, 208, 226, 240 ; Disraeli's 
attitude towards, 241, 291 

Baring, Thomas, 269 
Basevi, George, 269 

, Nathaniel (alluded to), 269 

Baumer (valet), (alluded to), 26 

Beaumarchais, 309 

Bentinck, Lord G., 41, n. i, 42, n. i, 

304 

Berlin Congress, 45, 217, 227, 231, 
235, 239 ; Disraeli at, 326, n. i 

Bismarck, Prince, 45, 241, 326, ;/. i 

Blessington, Lady, 47, 271, n. 2; 
Disraeli on, 277 and notes 

Bliss, Dr. (antiquarian), 269 

Bolingbroke, Lord, 3 ; Disraeli's clue, 
II, 24, 25, n. I, 46, 51, n. 2, 72, 
83, n. 2; Utrecht Treaty, 129, 130, 
172, n. 2 ; ideas of monarchy — 
their influence on Disraeli, 194-198, 
203, «. 2, 206, 234, 259 

Borthwick, 125 

Bowring, Sir J., 221 

Brandes, 9 



Bright, John, 98, 109, (1879) 206 ; and 
Gladstone, 207-208 ; his tribute to 
Disi'aeli, 247 

British Columbia (1858), 200 

Brontes, the, 301 

Brooks, Shirley, 25, «. I 

Brougham, Lord, 51 

Browning, R., 313 

Bryce, Rt. Hon. J,, 9, 247 

Buckingham, Duke of, 271 

Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia, 225, 
226 ei seq. ; the two portions only 
re-pieced through the "autonomy" 
implanted by Disraeli in one of them, 
227 

Bulwer, Sir H., 43, n. 

Burke, Edmund, 3, 25, 44, n., 46, 55, 
67. 72, 83, n. 2, 194, 198, 203, n. 2, 
280 

Burney, Frances, 268 

Byron, Lord, 47, 183, 270, 275 ; Dis- 
raeli on, 276 ; in Ixion, 276, n. I ; 
"Cadurcis," 293, 321 ; quoted, 15 

Canada, 136, n. i, 137, 200 and n. 2, 
206, «. I, 247, 250 

Canning, 3, 25 ; dedication to, 48, 55> 
195, 198 

Cape, the, 201, 213 

Carlyle, Thomas, 34, 35, 58, 125, 126; 
identity of ideas with Disraeli's, 62, 
77, 85-92, 119, 238, 71. i; pictur- 
esque, 303 ; style, 313 

Carnarvon, Lord, 213 

Caroline, Queen, 24, n. 4, 277, «. 2 

Castlereagh, Lord, "solidarity of 
Europe," 209 

Cervantes, 293 

Chartism, II, 61, 87, 106 ; Disraeli's 
sympathy with Chartists in 1840, 
113 ; in 1852. ..26, n. I 

Chatham, Lord, 3; Disraeli on, 24, 
74, 195, 200 J empire, 208 

China, 221, 234 



327 



;28 



INDEX 



Church, 69, 70, 90; one of the pro- 
blems, 1830-40 ... 113, 125; and 
"Labour," 126, 127, 129; Disraeli's 
historical and social ideas on Church 
and Theocracy, 145-156 ; Anglican- 
ism and Puritanism, 149, 152-155; 
undoing of national Church a disaster 
for Nonconformists, 153-154; atti- 
tude to latter, 163-165 ; science, 
materialism, indifferentism, "higher" 
criticism, rationalism, 156-158, 165- 
166; Ritualism, 170; education 
i^.v.), 167-169; discipline, 169-170; 
Romanism, 171-178; "The great 
house of Israel," 179; "Corybantic 
Christianity," 174 ; Radicalism, 
Liberalism, and Romanism, 175, 
(1836) 184; Irish, 262-266 

Churchill, Lord Randolph, 286 

Clanricarde, Lady, 295 

Clay, J., 270 

Cobbett, 105 

Cobden, R., 34 ; and Gladstone, 40, 
n. 2, 86, 238 

Coleridge, S. T., 125 

Colonies, 32, 49, 51 ; Disraeli's early 
interest in, 199 ; federations and 
constitutions, 201 ; critical state of 
home feeling regarding, 1839-53, 
201 ; effect of democracy on, 202 ; 
Disraeli's important pronouncements 
regarding, 203-206 ; Gladstone's and 
Bright's policy contrasted, 207 et 
seq. ; self-government, 207-214 ; and 
America, 250-252 

Copley, Sarah, 22, 270 

Cowpei-, W. (poet), quoted, 13 ; em- 
pire, 20S, 245 

Croker, 269 and n. 4 

Cromwell, Oliver, 3 ; republican theo- 
cracy, 149, 180; Ireland, 261 

Currie, Lady, 29 

Dante, theocracy, 147 
Davison, Mr., letter to (quoted), 272 
Denmark, 213, n. i, 235, 239 
Derby, Lord, 14, (1852) 25, n. i, 39, 
41, n. 2, 136-138, (1852 and 1855) 
191, «. I ; on Russian methods, 226 ; 
Ireland, 260, n. i 
Dickens, Charles, 289 ; romance, 302 
Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beacons- 
field [and see Carlyle, Colonies, Em- 
pire, Reform Bill, America, Ireland, 
and Foreign Policy], his idea of 
Conservatism, 5-8, 39, 204 ; a poet 
and artist, 1 1, 36 ; his early surround- 
ings, 16-18, 268-272 ; unique phases 
of earliest youth, 16, 18, 275, 309- 



312, 321-325 ; distinction between 
wish for influence and for position, 
12 ; his mission, 5-7» 12, 49-52, 56, 
III, 119, 210 ; regrets Lord Derby's 
temerity then, as much as his timidity 
in the gran^ rifiito of 1855. ..191, «., 
213, n. ; indisposition to take office, 
1852. ..14 ; never opportunist: courted 
unpopularity, ib. ; "national" atti- 
tude, 19, 47, 48, 49, 55, 56, 66, 68, 
84, 191, «., 210; responsibility and 
privilege, 7, 13, 95, 98, 107, 144, 
210 ; utterances to be viewed suc- 
cessively, 20 ; described in youth, 
22-25 ; described in age, 25-27 ; 
debt, 24, 281-282; gambling, 282; 
contradictions in, 46, 47 ; reconcilia- 
tion of, 43, 293 ; illness, 23, 311, 324, 
325 ; love of flowers and forestry, 
26 ; light and books, ib. ; influence 
with Queen, 29; and art, 19, 30; 
manners, 31 ; love of London, 
31. 307-308; vigilance, 32, 246; 
generosity, 34, 35 ; contrasted with 
Gladstone, 35-42 ; scholarship, 36 ; 
love of beauty, 1 7 ; his longsighted 
plan, 39 ; land, labour, democracy, 
and empire, ib. ; principles and 
measures, ib. ; duties of opposition, 
40 ; wish for strong government, ib., 
42, 50, 210, 252 ; dislike of bores, 40, 
44, 224 ; "nationality and race," 45, 
225; "detachment," 46; influence 
of eighteenth century on, ib. ; 
" predisposition," ib. ; religious 
ideas, ib. ; " feudal and federal 
principles," 51, 63 ; change and 
"obsolete opinions," 51, 81 ; French 
Revolution theories, 58-68, 83, 85, 
97, 145 ; historical outlook, 73- 
77, 81-83 ' revolutions, 47, 72 ; 
republican plots, 77 ; dread of 
plutocracy, 6, n. 3, 77, III, 115, 
129, 202 ; universal suffrage, 77-80, 
98-104 ; gentlemen should prove 
leaders, 80 ; conduct in 1852. ..39, 
40 ; store set by landed interest, 68, 
71. 86, 95, 114, 135; languages, 
241 ; classics, 249 ; middle classes, 83, 
105, 123-124, 134-135. 251 ; efficacy 
of Parliament (1848), 87 ; his prin- 
ciples of representation, 94 ; taxa- 
tion and, 94 ; income-tax and middle 
class, 96 ; views prophecies as to 
social effects of Peel's changes, 97 ; 
uniform wish throughout for indus- 
trial franchise, 98 et seq. ; * ' free 
aristocracy," 49, 98, 118, 119; 
adopted rating principle of Russell 



INDEX 



329 



in 1854.. .icx); the consistent train 
which led to his measure of 1867, 
99-101 ; counties and boroughs, loo, 
104; wanted democracy as an ele- 
ment, not a class, loi ; " population " 
and property standards, 101-104 J 
wish for variety in representation, 
98, 104 ; discontent and disafifection, 
106 ; summary of his ideal for making 
Toryism "national," 107; "house- 
hold democracy," 109 ; Disraeli's 
long consistency, 108-110; lifelong 
attitude to Labour, 1 12-129 5 Pi"0- 
blems of 1830-40.. . 113 ; Disraeli's 
social outlook on " condition of 
England " and economical problems, 
1 14 d seq. ; upshot of his sympathy 
with labour (q.v.), 1 16 c( seq., 
118, 119 ; vision of a vanishing 
industi'ialism, 119; the spirit of 
chivalry applicable to labour, 122 ; 
"saviours of society," 122; and 
" Anglicanism," 126 ; he breaks up 
"Young England" (1845) by press- 
ing home their Church convictions, 
128 ; parochial life more important 
even than political, 127 ; his views 
of "Free Trade" {q.v.), 131-142 ; 
influence on prices and wages of 
precious metal?jll3i, n. i, 133, 140 ; 
"Reciprocity," 129, 131, 138, 140; 
attitude on Corn Laws, 131-13S j 
distribution of labour and purchasing 
power, 113, 131 ; Disraeli's probable 
attitude towards Mr. Chamberlain's 
present fiscal scheme adumbrated : 
wholesale plans, retail applications, 
135-141 ; consumer and producer, 
136 ; social, political, spiritual aspects 
of Church {q.v.) viewed from , Dis- 
raeli's theocratic bias, 145-179 ; 
Puritanism and Theocracy, 149, 151 ; 
and Ireland, 200 ; Aryan and Se- 
mitic conceptions, 145 et seq. ; 
Anglican Church " part of England," 
"one of the few great things left," 
153 ; society, inconceivable without 
religion, 155 ; part played by this 
attitude in his novels, 155-156 ; and 
science, 156-159 ; and revelation by 
races, 157, n. 1 ; materialism, 158 ; 
Disraeli's beliefs, id., 155 ; State 
would lose by severance, 159-163 ; 
"Atheism in domino," 166; "Man 
in masquerade," 170 ; not a " mystic," 
156; attitude on education {q.v.'), 
167-169 ; discipline, 169, 170 ; uni- 
versities, 169 ; his bias for Monarchy, 
180-184 ; and royal prerogative, 184, 



1S9-192, and fully the whole of 
Ch. V. ; Royal Titles Bill, 193-194 ? 
cheapness of monarchy, 192 ; debt 
to Bolingbroke's ideas, 195-198 
Colonies {q.v.), Disraeli's zeal and 
plans for, 198 ; Disraeli's attitude 
to " millstone" view investigated^ 
200-203; "Peace at any price," 
207 ; "timidity of capital," 202 ; 
power of instancing political pre- 
cedent, 213, 71. I ; origin of his 
title, 44, n. 
jEmfiire {q.v. and Foreign Policy), 
temper of his imperialism, 209 et 
seq., 245 ; principles of his policy 
illustrated, 210-214, 217-221 ; 
Eastern policy considered, dis- 
cussed, and illustrated, 222-236 ; 
" the just influence of England," 
235 ; diplomacy, 221-222 ; Cyprus, 
230 ; his attitude to France iq.v.), 
235-239; Germany {q.v.), 240; 
Austria and Italy {q.v,), 241-243 ; 
Poland, Greece {q.v.), 243 ; pro- 
nouncement on militarism with 
constitutional yi'r?;^^', 244 ; his fare- 
well to constituents sums up his 
lifelong aims, and repeats the 
phrase, twice used, of his youth, 
244-245 ; England restored to 
her due European position, 227, 
332 ; European concert, 209, 230 ; 
lasting results, 216, 227, 229, 230 ; 
Bulgaria (17. f.), Eastern Rowmelia, 
and autonomy, 227 
America {q.v.), early predictions, 
48, 246-250; "revolution" dis- 
tinguished from "insurrection," 
247, n. I ; must be treated as an 
imperial power affecting Europe, 
234, 248 ; the changes produced 
by her civil war, 248-249 ; Dis- 
raeli alone recognised the signifi- 
cance of the war, 247 ; his dis- 
cerning treatment of Anglophobia, 
250-253 ; negro problem, 251 ; 
Fenianism, its true character, 253- 
256, 261 
Ireland {q.v.), Disraeli's early sym- 
pathy, and great insight into true 
difficulties of, 256, 261 ; dis- 
tinguishes discontent from re- 
bellion, 261 ; disestablishment 
and disendowment, 262-265 
Society, attitude to, 31, 44; early 
society around Disraeli, 268-272 ;. 
his idea of real, 273-277, 284- 
285 ; love of purpose, 276 ; social 
charity, 277 ; love of contrasts^ 



330 



INDEX 



277-278; foibles, 278-279; 
against social melancholy, 279 ; 
conversation, 279-281 ; debt, 281- 
282 ; friendship and ailments, 281 ; 
and trial, 288 ; " Levison and the 
coals," 282, 71. 2 ; the " Swells," 
283 ; political society, 283 ; 
salons, 274 and n. i ; club 
loungers, 284 ; domesticity, 284- 
285 ; women, love, and marriage, 
285-287 ; dream-pictures, 287-288 

Wit and htimour distinguished, 289 ; 
nature of Disraeli's — "a master of 
sentences," 290 ; retorts, ib.; aphor- 
isms, 291-293 ; phrases, 293 ; 
similes, 292 ; political pictures, 
292, 294-295 ; sense of ludicrous, 
295-300 ; pathetic irony illus- 
trated, 300-301 

Romance and pictures queness, 301- 
308 ; Disraeli's romanticism, 302- 
304 ; associative feeling and de- 
scription, 290, n. I, 304 ; scenery 
and light, 305-307 ; forms and 
sounds of trees, 306 ; the mar- 
vellous, 307 ; love of and intimacy 
with London, 307-308 ; blemishes 
of style considered and explained, 
309-331 ; pathos, 309, 310 ; mode 
of preparation, 313 ; influence of 
the arts, 313-314 ; critics, 291, 
315 ; par excellence an imaginative 
fantastic, 313, 315 ; character of 
his fancy, 290; poetiy, 304, 311, 

323 

Ideas on career, 316 ; preparation 
and education {q.v. S2ib-title), 317 ; 
second-hand adaptation, 318 ; 
actiofi, ib. j life true piety, not 
brooding on death, ib. j maxims, 
319; "aloofness," 320; "auda- 
city," 321 ; sensitiveness and 
courage, 321 ; idealism, 322 ; 
reverie, ib. ; industry, 326 

Ifis own career (and see above) ; 
earliest phases of, 322-325 ; 
dividing lines and moot points of, 
adverted to, 319 ; posthumous 
treatment by party, 325 ; tributes 
to, by Gladstone, Salisbury, and 
Granville, 326 ; character, 326 

Fiction — earliest works, 23, and n. I ; 
American pamphlet quoted, 48 ; 
his verse, 340, n. ; his books 
quoted, I, 3, 4, 5, 10, II, 12, 13, 

14 ; on leisure, 32 ; enthusiasm, 

15 ; characters in, ib., 17, 122, n. I, 
125, 129, 141, 274 and 71. I ; habit 
of transference, 16, 175, 210, 275, 



277; in Alarcos, 16, 17; "pre- 
disposition " (real Toryism) and 
"education" (poets), 18,19,31; 
Vivian Grey,iT, 32, 33, 44, 112,117, 
181, 270, 273, 275 ; its effects, 275 ; 
circumstances under which written, 
309-310, 311, 323-324 ; its original 
dedication, 312, n. i, 315 
Change and national character, 55, 
56 ; physical wants, 60 ; man's 
destiny, 59 ; true aristocracy, 62 ; 
" Equality " and Labour, 63, 64 ; 
institutions and nationalism, 65, 
68 ; modern unoriginality, 69 ; 
"Estates" of realm, 68 [cf. 72, 
82, 93. 95. 97. 226) ; " Marney " 
and dukeism, 75 ; old Whigs and 
Tories, 81-82 ; taxation, 82, 71. I ; 
Burke, ib., «. 2 ; monopoly of 
power, ib., n. 3; bigotry of philo- 
sophy, 83 ; Reform Bill, 84, 91, 
93, 94; utilitarianism (^.z/.), 87, 
88, 123 ; towns, 115 ; labour and 
leadership, ib. ; House of Com- 
mons, 116; labour, 118; industry 
and industrialism, 119 ; a " dawn" 
for the People, 120 ; laissez-faire 
(Fopanilla),i2y, lsli\u.Qs(q.v.), 125; 
Radicals for capital, 129 ; Young 
Efigland {q.v.), 130 ; "Free ex- 
change," 142 ; Theocracy, 145 ; 
Church, 155 ; and science, 156- 
163; races instruments for special 
revelations, 157, «. i ; scepticism, 
160 ; Ritualism, 170 ; Catholicism, 
1 71-178; Lothair axiaXysQ^, 172- 
178 ; monarchy, 180-185 ; political 
change /^rjif, evil, 183; colonies, 
199 ; " un-English," 203 ; militar- 
ism, 244 ; sympathy and empire, 
217 ; Semitism, 222, fi. i ; civilisa- 
tion of Mediterranean, 223, w. i; 
Alfieri, 241 ; Italy, 241-242 ; 
Ireland, 258 ; Fenianism, 255 ; 
Rogers {Infer7tal -Marriage), 269, 
n. \ % architects, ib., 71. 3 ; Gore 
House, 271, 71. 2; society (/«- 
fernal Marriage), 273 ; breeding 
{Lothair), (Co7ii7igsby), (Sybil), 
274 ; ( Vhietia), ( Viviatt Grey), 
(Contari7ti Fleming), 275 ; Lut- 
trell (q.v.), 276 ; D'Orsay {q.v.), 
ib. ; Byron {q-v.), 276-277 ; 
lxio7i, ib. ; Lady Blessington 
{q.v.), ( Young Duke), {Popanilla), 
277 ; (Sybil), ib.; {Itifertial Marri- 
age), /i^.; startling contrasts, 278; 
{Popanilla, lxio7i, Sybil), ib.; 
foibles {Popa7iilla), tb, ; {Co7i. 



INDEX 



331 



ingsby, YoutigDuke, Venetia), 279; 
{Lolkair), 279 ; conversation 
( Young Duke), 280 ; {Lothair), 
.281; debt {Hetirietta Temple), 
282 ; gambling ( Vivian Grey, 
Young Duke), ib.; " Swells," 
(^Lothair), 283 ; political society 
{Sybil, Endyiniofi, Young Duke), 
283-284 ; club loungers, civic 
dinners, 284 ; home life (Lotkair, 
Venetia), 284-285 ; women 
{_Lothair, Coningsby, Henrietta 
Temple, Vivian Grey, Contarini 
Fleming), 285-287 ; and marriage, 
friendship, 287-288; Wit, Hu- 
mour, and Romance, many pas- 
sages, Ch. IX., passim ; imparti- 
ality (^Alroy), 321 ; Correspondence 
and Letters, 23, 71. 4, 32, 131, n. 
I, 271, 272, 324, n. I, 325 

Pamphlets (and see ^^ Press," The) — 
IVhat is he? I, 21, 33, 50; and 
Spirit of Whiggism, Rtinny- 
mede Letters, 50 , 66, 95, 149, 
n. I, 197, 198 ; Grists Ex- 
amined, 21, «. I, 51 ; Letter to Lord 
Lyndhurst, 51, 72, n. 2 ; Whig- 
gism, Republicanism, Jacobin- 
ism, 74, 75-77 ; centralisation, 
^'^•> 93» 104 ; reform, 92 ; civil 
equality, 94 ; public opinion, 106 ; 
labour, 112; Corn Laws, 131; 
monarchy, 181, 184; "national 
party," 196 

Revolutionary Epick and Shelley, 
47, 51,68, 85 ; labour, 112, 311 

Speeches, 14, 38, 44, 50 (election 
address, 1832), 53 ; Equality, 64- 
65 ; Popular principles (1847), 69 ; 
Social and national importance 
of landed interests, 71, 72, 95 ; 
property and middle classes, 78- 
79 ; agitators, 79, 80, 106 ; im- 
portance of party system, 84, 
n. I, 85, 86 ; land, 86 ; utili- 
tarianism {q-v,), 90 et scq. ; 
triennial parliaments, 92, (1846) 
97; Reform speeches, (1848- 
59) 98-107, (1859) loi ; public 
opinion, 106 ; ideal and national 
Toryism, 107; "popular privileges" 
and "democratic rights," 107; 
Edinburgh (1867), 109 ; Chart- 
ists (1840), 113; Labour (1872- 
74), 116; " Trustees of posterity," 
bis, 123, 130 ; anti-Erastianism, 
(1845) 128, (1848) ib.; labour 
and gold, 133; Social ills and 
remedies of Free Trade, (1852) 



135, (1879) 140; reciprocity, 138- 
139 ; social remedies (1872), 143 ; 
Church, 149 ; pledge for religious 
liberty, a benefit to Nonconform- 
ists, 153; Dissenting "sacerdotal- 
ism" (1870), 154; State would 
lose by severance from it ot 
Church (1870), 159 ; parish life 
(i860), 163 ; Dissent, 164; religious 
revival, 160; rationalism (l86l), 
166 ; education (1832, 1839, 1854, 
1867, 1870. 1872), 167-169; danger 
to State if the civil ecclesiasticaL 
powers, disunited, collide, 161 ; 
monarchy, (1872) 188-189, (1861) 
194; colonies (1848), 200, 234; 
colonial empire, (1863) 204, 
(1872) 295; imperialism, (1862) 
210, (1855) ib. ; "annexation," 
(1879) 212-215, 216; considera- 
tion for subject races and foreign 
powers, (1879) 217-221, (1856) 
221, (1871) 228-229, (i860) 234- 
235» (1853) 236, (1864) 237, (1858) 
237-238, (1864) ib., (1879) 239, 
(1878) 232, n. I ; Burials Bill 
(1880), 290, n. 2; diplomacy, 
(i860) 222, (1864) ib. ; Russia's 
lawful ambition, 229 ; Berlin 
Treaty, 231, 235 ; "Pan-Slavism," 
232; "balance of power," (1864) 
234, (1870) 240; interference, 
210, 235, 240; humanity (1876), 
225 ; actuating principles of his 
outlook (repeating his earliest 
pamphlets), (1876) 244, (1881) 
221 ; foresight as to America 
(1863), 247-248; speeches of dis- 
cernment on America (1856), 248, 
249 ; American Anglophobia, 
(1865) 250-251, (1871) 251-253; 
negroes, 251-252 ; Fenianism 
(1872), 254; Irelatid, (1843) 256, 
(1844) 256-258 ; Maynooth, (1846) 
257, n. I, (1858) 260, n. I, (1868) 
259, 261, (1869) 260; his four 
great speeches, (1868-69) 264-266, 
(1869) 260, (1871) 247, (1872) 
254 ; Peel (1846), 278 ; Wit, 
(1845-49) 292, (1833, 1846, 1859, 
i860, 1876) 295 

'^Democracy," attitude to, 7, 33, 39, 
45, 47, 48, 49, S3, and Chap. II. 
passim, 58, 66, 69, 83, 88, n. I, 
91, 92, and n. I, 93, 95, 97, 98- 
III, 117, 137, 201 ; in 1884... 100, 
107-108 ; a true sovereignty, 119 ; 
America, 251 

Education, 11, 97, 98, 100, loi- 



332 



INDEX 



lo6, 154, 159, 167-169, 317, 318, 
323. 
Qiiahties — generally, 26, 32 ; am- 
bition (its nature), 11, 12, 17, 323, 
and Ch. 'K. passim ; self-control, 
37j 321 ; aristocratic perception, 
popular sympathies, 49 ; buoyancy, 
32 ; carelessness of money, 27:; 
chivalry, 29, 286 ; courage, 25, 

321 ; eloquence, 36 ; philippics, 
41, n. 2 ; foresight and insight, 
32, 35, 54, 96, 97, 1 15, ii7, "8, 
133-135, 140, «• I, 199, 207, 240, 
247, 249, 266, 284, 294, 321 ; 
friendship, 29; genius ("auto- 
suggestive "), 15, 16 ; gratitude, 
27, 34, 325 ; humour, 37, and 
Ch. V^. passim ; ideahsm, 16, 17, 
322, and Ch. VIII., IX., and X. 
passim ; imagination, 3, 52, 209, 
221, and Ch. VIII., IX., and X. 
passim ; independence (even when 
unpopular), 14, and Ch. VIII. 
and X. passim; individuality, 13, 
19, 46, 49, 275, and Ch. VIII. 
and X. passim ; intensity, 16, 321, 

322 ; irony, Ch. IX. passim, 300- 
301 ; loneliness, 35, 284, and Ch. 
X. passim ; loyalty and friendship, 
29, 288 ; magnanimity, 15 ; in- 
stances of, 34, 213, 71. I ; mystery, 
44, 238, n. I, 323 ; parliamentary, 
32, 35,, 37, 38, 39, 283, 292, 294- 
295; patience, 25, 316; reserve, 
35, 226, 284 ; reverie, 32, 322 ; 
romance, 18, and Ch. IX. passim ; 
sense of destiny and a mission, 12, 
18, 46, 59, 310, and Ch. IX. and 
X. passim ; sympathy with labour, 
?6, 39, 48, 60, 61, 64 ; his view of 
industrial franchise, 98-107 ; 
capacities of working classes, 101;, 
III, II2-129; fruits of, I16-I17, 
138; tenacity, 35, 36;- will, 11, 
14, 25, 40, 43, 47, 316 ; wit, 33, 
43, 44; considered fully, Ch. IX. 

De/ecis, 15, 31, 35, 42, 43, 209, 240, 
304, 309-313, 319, 321 ; charac- 
terised, 321, 322 ; style, 203, and 
Ch. IX. passim 

Afiecdotes ^ Ch. 1. passim, 16, n., 
135, 241, 254, 256, 268-272, 279, 
281, 286, 287, 288, 290-291, 300, 

_ 319, 321, 323, 325, 326, fi. 
Disraeli, Benjamin (Lord Beaconsfield's 

grandfather), 16, 270, and n. i 
, Mrs. (Lady Beaconsfield), 10 ; 

Disraeli's tributes to, 27 ; stories of, 

28, 29, 30, 35, 268, 286, 288 



Disraeli, Isaac, 23 ; letter of (alluded 
to), 24, «. I J influence on his son, 
46,:'! 72 ; phrases, 203, n. 2 ; his sur- 
roundings, 268-271 ; advice to his 
son, 275 ; phrases, 293, 300 

— — , Sarah, 10, 17, n., 22; her 
influence, 324 

D'Orsay, Count, 268; Disraeli on, 
276 ; " Count Mirabel," 277, 291 

Douce, F. (antiquarian), 269 

Downman, H., 269 

, J., 269 

Doyle, 124 

Dundas, Sir D., 44 

Durham, Lord, 14, n. i 

Egypt, 208, 221 ; Suez Canal, 222 

Eldon, Lord, 5, 50, 82, 259 

Eliot, George, 302 

Empire, 49, 53, 54, 92, 161, 193, 205- 

207, 209-210, 212-245 
Ewald, Mr., 9, 207 
, Professor, 146 

Faber, 124; "St. Lys," 126 

Falconieri, Tita, 24, n. 2, 270 

Foreign Policy [and see various coun- 
tries, including Poland] ; Disraeli's 
principles of, 210-216, 217, 231, 234, 
235 ; temper of his imperialism, 193, 
205, 207, 209, 212-245 ; pacificatory, 
210, 214, 216, 221, 235 ; principles 
of diplomacy, 209, 222 

Fox, Charles, 40, 213, n. i 

France, 45, 66, 173, n. i ; Disraeli's 
desire for ente?ite with, and 
general policy towards, 236-239 ; 
and Italy, 239 ; and Eastern ques- 
tion, ib, 

Frederick the Great (quoted), 223, 
n. I 

"Free Trade," 36, 2,6, n. I, 96, 97, 
112, 114, 131-141 ; Disraeli's pro- 
bable attitude towards Mr. Chamber- 
lain's present fiscal schemes, illus- 
trated by Disraeli's own pronounce- 
ments, 135-140 ; colonies a set-off 
to urban effects, cf. 202, 213, n. I ; 
Ireland, 260 

French Revolution, theories of, 2, 46, 
58-69 

Frere, Sir Bartle, 212-215 

Frith, Mr., R. A., 28 

Froude, 9 

Garnett, Dr. R., 47 

George III., 74, 187, 197 

IV., 181 ; society under, 272 



INDEX 



333 



Germany, 45 ; theology, 166 ; Dis- 
raeli's attitude towards, 240 ; discerns 
purport of the war, 1870, ib. 

Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E., 34; 
compared with Disraeli, 35-42, 55, 
98 ; and Cobden, 40, n. 2 ; and 
Oswald Millbank, 122, n. i ; Catho- 
lic University Bill, 169, «. i ; favours 
Canadian " retaliation " on America, 
136, n. I ; prerogative, 190-191 ; 
and Bright, 207-208 ; precedent, 
2t3, «. I ; corrected, 128, «. i, 172, 
184, 187, 222, «. I, 258 ; his praise, 
256, 262, 264 ; on Disraeli's wit, 
29s ; alluded to, 295 ; on indifference 
to world, 318 ; tribute of, to Dis- 
raeli, 326 ; inconsistencies in tactics, 
36, n. I 

Goethe, 15, 63, 157 

Gordon, General, 208 

Graham, Sir J,, 34, 41, 236 

Graves, Mr., and Bradenham, 24, n. I 

Grant-Duff, Sir Mountstuart, 34 

Granville, Lord, 295 ; tribute of, to 
Disraeli, 326 

Greece, 224-225, 226, 232, n. i, 243 

Greenwood, Mr, Frederick, 43, n, I 

Grey, Lord, 21, 74, 109, no 

Guthrie, Dr., 43 

Hallam, a., 124 
Hamid, Abdul, 227, 232, n. i, 233 
Hartington, Lord (Duke of Devon- 
shire), on Disraeli, 12, 254 
Hatherley, Lord, 44 
Hayward, Abraham (critic), 17, 11. 2, 

38 . , 

Heine, Hemrich, 9 ; on the People, 

121 ; humour, 296 
Herbert, Sidney, 39 
Hook, Theodore, 270 
Hope, " Anastasius," 124 

■ , Mr. Beresford, 290 

Hudson, Sir J., 213 

Hume (reformer), 77, 94 ; refuted on 

taxation theory, 97, 98, 103, 105, 

112, 201 

India, 193, 200 ; Disraeli's policy for, 
215, 216 ; the Mutiny, 217-221, 225, 
232 ; his Eastern policy, Indian, 
232, and passim throughout Ch. VL 

Ireland, 33, 84, 127, 132, 133, 175; 
Disraeli's early sympathy with, 256 ; 
follows Pitt's policy, ib. ; his wonder- 
ful early speeches on the real ques- 
tion, 256-258 ; interpreted by later 
and much later utterances, 258-260 ; 



and Disraeli's view of coercion, 258, 
n. I ; wish for strong government 
and an executive in touch with the 
people, 258, 260 ; variety of employ- 
ment, 261 ; " conquered people," 
261, n. I ; Fenianism (j-^^ America), 
ib., n. 2 ; progress from 1844 to 1868, 
260-262 ; disestablishment and dis- 
endowment of Church, 262-266 ; 
Disraeli's warning, 1881...266; policy 
"to create, not to destroy," 259, 
261 ; against "identity of institu- 
tions," 257 ; land question, 265., 
267 ; pauperism, 260 
Italy, 45, 226 ; Disraeli's attitude 
towards, 241-243 ; his private sym- 
pathy checked by public policy, 
241-242 

Jamaica, 201 
Johnson, Dr., 280 

Jowett, Benjamin, cited on Eastern 
question, 230 ; on Disraeli, 321 

Kandahar, 208, 215 et seq. and n. \ 
Kebbel, Mr., 9 ; quoted, 129 
Kenealy, Dr., 34 

Lamb, Lady Caroline, 276 
Lamington, Lord (Baillie Cochrane), 

27, 124, 125 
Landor, W. Savage, 291, 71, I 
Lassalle, Ferdinand, 122 
Layard, Sir Henry, 23, 224, 270 
Leighton, Lord, 203 
Lewis, Wyndham, Mr., 28 
Lind, Jenny, Disraeli's reference to, 

324, n. I 
Liverpool, Lord, 83, 71. 3, 132 
Lockhart, 23, «. 4, 271 
Londonderry, Lady, 271 
Louis Philippe, King, 10, 236, 237, 

238, 71. I 

Luttrell, H., Disraeli on, 276 
Lyndhurst, Lord, 22, 51, 268, 270, 

288 
Lytton, Sir E. Bulwer, 4, 22, 203, 

270 ; romance, 301 
Lytton, Lord, 221 

Macaulay, Lord, 179, 209, 217, 256, 

268 
Malmesbury, Lord, 201 
Manchester School, 50, 71. I, 200 ; and 

see Utilitarianism 
Manin, Daniel, 241, 320 
Manners, Janetta, Lady John, 25 

, Lord John, 124, 126, 127 

Manning, Cardinal, 177 



334 



INDEX 



Mario (nee White), Madame, "Theo- 
dora," 47, n. I 
Marx, Karl, 122 
Mathews, C, 270 
Melbourne, Lord, 14, n. I, 198 
Meredith, Mr. (Sarah Dhxs.&VCs Jianci), 

270 
Metternich, 221, n. i, 242 
Meynell, Mr. W., 20 
Midhat, Pacha, 227 
Millais, Sir John, 34 
Milnes, Monckton R. (Lord Hough- 
ton), 124, 125, 126 
Milton, John ; political theocracy, 
150-151 ; "Venetian Constitution" 
and Dutch models, 151 
Molesworth, 201 
Mommsen, Professor, 66 
Monarchy, 70, 84, 90, 96, 97; Dis- 
raeli's attitude to, 182 ; prerogative, 
184, 189-192 ; many-sided emblem, 
191 ; King, the member for Empire, 
192 ; " Empress of India," not 
bastard imperialism, 193-194; with 
Church, make for civil order, 194 
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 27 
Montaigne, 296 
Monteith, 124 
Moore, T,, 269 
Morier, Sir R., 224 

, "Zohrab," 270 

Morley, Right Hon. J. (quoted), 31, 

34, 35. 41. 52, 222, n. I 
Murphy, Serjeant, 125 
Murray, John, 23, 268 

Napier, editor, 23, n. 4, 270 
Napoleon IH., 10, 122, 236, 238, 271 
Newdegate, Mr., 222, ?i. 2 
Newman, Cardinal, 6, n. 3, 170, 172 
New Zealand, constitution for, 201 
Nietzsche, F., 59, 60 
North, Lord, 213, n. i 

O'CONNELL, Daniel, 172, «.i,255and 

n. I 
O'Connor, Feargus, 26, n. l 

, Mr. T. P., 282, 71. I 

Osborne, Bernal, 33 
Owen, Robert, 122 

Padwick, Mr., 27 

Palmerston, Lord, 34, 200, 209, 210, 
211, 213, n. I, 222, n. I, 227, 240, 
242 

, Lady, 274, n. 

Peel, Sir Robert, 4, 8, 14, 25, 38; 
Disraeli's real design in his over- 
throw, 40, 41, 48, 50, 56,64, 83, «., 
96; disjointed labour, I12-H4; his 



beneficial reduction of tariff, 113, 
131, n. I ; "compensations " to land, 
136 ; (1843) in favour of preference 
to Canada and Canadian "retalia- 
tion," ib., n. I ; and Church educa- 
tion, 165, 167 ; notes on monarchy, 
185-187; colonies, 201; empire, 
208 ; his prophecy as to Disraeli, 
217, 245; alluded to, 278, 291, 

293, 304 

" Peehtes," 33, 35, n. I, 39, 53, 295 

Penn, Mr., 269 

Perceval, 82 

Persia, 207 

Pitt, W., 5 ; young Disraeli's example, 
24, 74, 129, 256, 259 

Poland, Disraeli's sympathy with, 243 

Pope, A., 290, 307 

Powles, Mr., 23 n. 2 

Pozzo, 222, n. I, 271 

Press, The (Disraeli's organ, 1853- 
59), 25, n. I ; quoted, 7, n. 3, 33, 
n. 2, 39, 40, 53, 64, 181 ; detached 
democracy, 202, 213, n. i ; Turkey, 
228 ; political wit, 295 

Prussia, 240 

Pye (Laureate), 268 

Reform Bill, 1832-36.. .3, 8, 50, 51, «. 
73, 77, 83 ; effects of, 82-85, §9, 94, 
98, no, 1 16, 180, 184 

, 1867, principles of, illus- 
trated by former pronouncements, 
78-80, 90 ei seq., 94 et seq., 96, 98 ; 
its drift and meaning, 107-111, 138, 
262 

Representative, The, 23, and n. 2 

"Returns to Nature," 59 

Roebuck, N., 227 

Rogers, S., 269, and «. i, 293 

Rowton, Lord, 9 

Ruskin, J., quoted, 89, 303 

Russell, Lord J., 14, w. i, 34, 39, 40, 
41, 56, 97, 98 (reform scheme of 1854) 
100, (i860) 105, 132, 169 ; colonies 
and democracy, 202 ; empire, 208, 
211, 213, n. I 

Russia, 204, 208 ; and India, 215-216 ; 
newness of pretensions to Constanti- 
nople, 226, 229 ; the patriarchate, 
ib.; Disraeli's distinction between 
her "legitimate " and " illegitimate " 
ambitions, 229 ; his policy towards 
her, early indicated and long pursued, 
228-234 ; Pan-Slavism, 232 ; dis- 
memberment, 241 

Salisbury, Lord, 209, 232 ; tribute of, 
to Disraeli, 326 



INDEX 



335 



San Stefano, Treaty of, 227, 229 
Savile, George (Halifax), 209 
Savonarola, Theocracy, 147 
Scott, Sir Walter, 23, «. 4, 28, 121, 

126, 268, 269, 270, n. I., 302, 303 
Selwyn, 274 
Shaftesbury, Lord, 115; alluded to, 

294 
Sheil, 4 
Shelley, P. B., 16 ; influence of, on 

Disraeli, 47, 223, n. i ; Disraeli on, 

275, n. I ; alluded to, 293 
Sheridans, the, 10, 271, 288, 296 
Siddons, Mrs., 269 
Soudan, 208, 215 
South Africa, 137, 212-215 
Southey, R., 269 
Stafford, 125 
Strangford, Lord, 10, 16, n. i ; quoted, 

62, 124 
Sunderland, Lord, 73, 152 
Swift, Jonathan, 6, n. 2, 18, 25, n. i, 

281, 290, 293, n. I, 296, 300 
Sykes, Lady, 277, n. i 



Taylor ("Platonist"), 270, «. 

Tennyson, A., 124 

Thackeray, 16, n. 2, 279, 297, 300, 
302 

Tocqueville, De, 7, 39, 66, 71 ; on 
Church, 154; monarchy, 180 

Transvaal, 208, 214 

Trelawny, 47 

Turkey, Disraeli's attitude and policy 
towards, 222-234 ; Disraeli 7tot pro- 
Islam, 222-223 ; his policy tradi- 
tional, 224; real facts of Turkish 
question in Europe, 226-228 ; Cyprus, 
232 



Urquhart, Mr,, and "Sidonia," 122, 

272 
Utilitarianism, I, 12, 18, 87-89, 112, 

113, 114, 115, 123, 206 

Victoria, Queen, 10, 29, (1837) 185, 

187 ; Royal Titles Bill, 193-194 ; 

Indian language and India, 194, 

220-221, 270 
Villiers, Mr. C, 1 12 
Voltaire, quoted by Disraeli, 158, «, 3 ; 

influence, 290 

Waldegrave, Frances, Lady, 288 
Walewski, 238 
Walpole, Horace, 290 

, Mr, Spencer, 33 

, Sir R., 73, 92, n. i, 95, 132, 

148, 152 
Wellington, Duke of, 240, n. i 
Westbury, Lord, 44 
Wetherell, 82 
Whalley, Mr., 38 
Whigs, "New" and "Old," 78-83, 

90 et seq., 96, 99, 132, 143, 184, 

213, n. I, 262 
White, Sir W., 226, 233 
Whittlestone (valet), 24, 71. 2 
William III., 3, 148 
Williams, Mrs, (of Torquay), 10, 29 
Wiseman, Cardinal, 175 
Wood, Sir Charles, 320 
Wyndham, Sir W,, 80, 82, 259 

"Young England," 14, 48, 115; 
fully considered, 123-130; and 
Maynooth, 128 ; " Sanitas sani- 
tatum," 128-129 ; fruits of, 130 

Zulu War, 212-215 



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WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 

LONDON AND BECCLES. 



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